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Quick summary
- Price
- £15.00
- Venue
-
- Arts Centre Washington
Event description
Saturday 4 April, doors open 7pm, tickets £15
Join us for a special night celebrating the very best of North East folk culture as The Davy Lamp Folk Club returns to Arts Centre Washington for this special concert hosted by Terri & Eric Freeman.
The evening opens in true folk‑club tradition with floor performers—voices and musicians who capture the spirit, humour, and storytelling that define grassroots folk.Then, settle in for a concert featuring some of the most influential artists ever to emerge from the North East, all widely respected across the UK and far beyond:
Tom McConville with Andy Watt
A former BBC Radio 2 Musician of the Year, Tom’s superb fiddle playing and rich vocals—paired with Andy Watt’s outstanding musicianship—promise a set brimming with energy, elegance, and tradition.
Jez Lowe
A celebrated songwriter and the creative force behind the award‑winning BBC Radio 2 series The Radio Ballads, Jez brings sharp wit, powerful stories, and unforgettable melodies.
Bob Fox & Stu Luckley
Past winners of Melody Maker’s Folk Album of the Year, this iconic duo deliver impeccable harmonies, masterful guitar work, and songs that have shaped generations of folk performers.
Bob Fox and Stu Luckley
Bob Fox and Stu Luckley took the folk world by storm when they began playing together in the late 1970s. The duo’s reputation was cemented in 1978 when they released Nowt So Good’ll Pass, their debut album which won Melody Maker’s
‘Folk Album Of The Year’ award. The acclaim has stood the test of time: milestone folk albums are few and far between but Nowt So Good’ll Pass remains up there with the very best and has proved enduringly popular.
2008 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the release of Nowt So Good’ll Pass and to celebrate, Bob and Stu performed together again, touring selected folk venues and arts centres during October of that year finishing triumphantly at The Sage in Gateshead!
Bob and Stu hadn’t performed together since then until they were asked to do a couple of songs at The Davylamp Folk Club 50th Anniversary concert in July 2024 and having enjoyed the re-connection they agreed to do a special re-union concert at the annual Morpeth Gathering in the Town Hall on Saturday 26th April 2025.
Tickets for the concert sold out very quickly and the concert was a huge success, so much so that the duo decided to do a very short and selected series of re-union concerts in 2026.
Bob and Stu will play a range of instruments featured in their original live set including guitars, acoustic bass, dulcimer, and bouzouki and the reunion concerts will be made up of a selection of songs from Nowt So Good’ll Pass and their second album Wish We Never Had Parted as well as a few songs that never made it onto either of the albums!
Come and see what all the fuss was about!!
Tom’s musical journey started in the North East folk clubs in the early 70s. Newcastle’s thriving Irish scene provided the opportunity, with his first band, to support Sean McGuire, John Doonan, The Fureys, Boys of the Lough and even a lock-in with The Dubliners. Tom still credits the legendary Sean McGuire, the fiddle genius from Belfast, for teaching him his bowing techniques.
Over the years, Tom has worked with many line-ups. Every new venture brought great success and immense respect from his peers and public alike. Throughout his many collaborations he has continued his solo show at venues large and small.
Tom was voted Musician of the Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2009
He has played on hundreds of albums. The list includes: Barbara Dickson, Richard Thompson, Allan Taylor and Lindisfarne. He has shared stages throughout the world with Stephan Grappelli, Sean McGuire, Paul Brady and The Chieftains,
Tom McConville is a world class act!
For the Davy Lamp evening, he will be accompanied by Andy Watt on guitar, another talented North Easterner.
Jez Lowe is a much-travelled, much-covered singer and songwriter who has released twenty-plus albums of original songs over the last forty years, earning himself a loyal following along the way as well as a raft of awards and nominations. His songs have been recorded by over seventy of his peers, ranging from “old guard” acts like Fairport Convention, The Dubliners, Wizz Jones, The Tannahill Weavers, Mary Black and Bob Fox, to the newer breed of performers like The Unthanks, Megson, The Young Uns and The Duhks. He was also principal writer on the award-winning BBC Radio Ballads series and is a regular presenter on BBC Radio Four’s “Open Country” programme.
He continues to record and tour world-wide, sometimes in collaborations with fellow-artists such as James Keelaghan, Steve Tilston and The Pitmen Poets.
Jez Lowe’s latest album, his fifteenth collection of original songs, entitled “Oubliette”, has received outstanding reviews from across the folk music world, and was hailed by Fatea Magazine as “destined to become a folk classic in the top echelons of Jez’s already illustrious and extensive canon.”
