Less than Perfect Venues in York, Part 2.

Fib­bers is very less than per­fect, the Duch­ess nearly as lack­ing.  Admit­tedly there are more seats at the Duch­ess, though as some of them used to be church pews the com­fort level must be low.  There are also some more com­fort­able look­ing chairs but like Fib­bers, the audi­ence num­bers allowed in far exceed the num­ber of avail­able seats so it’s stand­ing room mostly.  Not so good for a 2.1÷2 hour con­cert.  And then the tick­ets say 7.30 start, the web­site says 8, and things finally get under way about 8.30.  Pre­sum­ably this is to max­im­ise the bar tak­ings but when one also has to stand it adds insult to injury. And there was only one decent beer, Theakston’s XB, indif­fer­ently kept.

So why were we there ? For a con­cert advert­ised as Chris Dre­ver, John McK­usker and Roddy Woomble.  In fact Boo Hewardine and Heidi Tal­bot were there too.  Chris and John were great, espe­cially when they were just play­ing together, but the other 3 didn’t add any­thing much to the even­ing.  John on fiddle, man­dolin and whistle is so invent­ive, a pleas­ure to listen to, and Chris Dre­ver is a won­der­ful power­ful singer.  Boo seemed mostly asleep, Roddy’s style of singing and range of songs just don’t appeal, and Heidi seems pretty aver­age for girl sing­ers.  Sorry chaps — over­all a pretty aver­age experience.