2026

 It's not every musician who can hold an audience for an entire concert with just one guitar and one voice, but I can now add Blair Dunlop to that short list. Granted, he did invite his mum - the wonderful singer Judy Dunlop - onto the stage to sing three songs (an unexpected and very much appreciated surprise guest), but the rest of the night was his. Blair is an excellent guitarist, and his songwriting is exceptional with some very clever and often very sharp and witty lyrics, particularly on political and environmental topics. 

Top songs for me were 'Let's Get Out of the City' with it's driving rhythm, and 'Feng Shui', about the feeling of being trapped in a room after a relationship breakup. A bit of a  claustrophobia theme there I guess? Another rocking song, 'Sweet on You', cemented Blair's style as firmly at the folk-rock end of the spectrum, while a new composition, 'Trilobite', was full of clever and funny deliberately forced rhymes.

Although almost all of the music was written by Blair, we were treated to a lovely instrumental version of Robert Burns' 'Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon'; and the concert began with Dylan's 'You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go', which Blair had previously sung with Ashley Hutchings (his dad) at the folk-rock legend's 80th birthday bash. 

On stage, Blair has a relaxed and confident manner, with some lovely anecdotes between songs and a wry sense of humour. His music is obviously influenced by his folk family roots, but he has taken the theme in a different direction. Is it still folk? What is folk anyway? A thoroughly good evening of quality music was enjoyed by all the folk present!

Many thanks to Dave Walters and to Ally and Ruby Turner for their songs from the floor to start each half; and to Ally, Juliet, Del and Dave for their 'warm-up' music as the audience arrived.