PETER KNIGHT'S GIGSPANNER
Though it’s too late to see Peter Knight’s Gigspanner Trio in Cambridge, they breezed through here last March, they are a band worth travelling miles to see. Formerly the fiddle player for Steeleye Span, Knight has put together an astonishingly talented threesome who push the boundaries of classic folk above and beyond. The gig I’ve just seen at the Stables Theatre in Hastings blew me away – had I been donning a toupee it would have rocketed into the stratosphere. The first wig in outer space.
Though not a natural folkie, I think after this gig, I have the zeal of the converted. Why? Well Knight isn’t any old brilliant fiddler: he has a demonic quality, an alchemist on four strings, a wizard of the genre who can make his amplified violin sing, chirp, cry, holler and mesmerise. He has the classic look: the grey hair swept back in a topknot, the flowing shirt, the Colonel Sanders beard and an earnest bespectacled look that reminded me of Sigmund Freud. He was accompanied by Roger Flack on guitar – packing his musical punches with tense restraint and Sachet Trochet on drums. Trochet, bright shirt, quiffed coiffure looked like he’d just jived in from an Elvis Presley movie. His final riff was astonishing in its rhythmic power.
Knight holds the whole show together with an eclectically exciting menu of trad folk songs (e.g. ‘Oh, the hard times of old England’) and some of his own sinewy, Celtic-inspired creations. The cheering audience heard his composed piece written for Terry Pratchett - a hauntingly beautiful elegy. His playing is utterly hypnotising – one moment filling the theatre with blissful high notes, the next deeply moving lower registers. Then a crazily fast Irish tune or a sensual bit of pizzicato. He can turn Grapelli or Nigel Kennedy at a stroke and has that rare ease of the great maestro of his instrument.
His singing voice is unexceptional but does the business and he commands the stage with his powerful musicianship. It was a totally wonderful evening and I am now a fully-fledged folkie. Gigspanner are worth going a long way to see.
To catch this amazing band, see tour dates on
www.gigspanner.com
