You know, we don’t play in Manchester often enough — Seth Lakeman, Manchester, 2007

Damn straight you don’t, especially if you’re going to continue putting on gigs like tonight’s. Absolutey bloody brilliant, and helped by the fact that the audience were great too – I’ve been to too many gigs recently where people have been there more to say that they’d been than to see and enjoy the band. Everyone there tonight was clearly there to see Seth and, moreover, was there to have a damned good time at it: the roar of applause at the end of the gig was like nothing I’ve heard before.

This was all probably helped by the utterly infectious support act, an Australian guy called Carus (pronounced “kye-rus”) who, despite not having the most exciting or original songs in the world, performed them with such astonishing energy and commitment that you just couldn’t help but love him – his self-proclaimed “Aussie-Reggae” style warmed the crowd up to near-boiling for Seth and band.

The only downer tonight was the lack of the inimitable Cormac Byrne on percussion – a new percussionist joined them and, whilst technically excellent, he lacked Cormac’s cheeky character – and also his amazing bodhran skills. But the band still sounded great and – though I’m almost loathe to say it – I didn’t really miss Cormac as much as I thought I might.

More photos: here.

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