Kate Rusby at the Bridgewater Hall

It seems to have become a Christmas tradition for us – going to watch Kate Rusby. It’s the third time we’ve been the South Yorkshire folk singer’s Christmas show. The first time in Warrington 3 years ago. We missed out last year due to my jolly to Australia but this year made sure we got tickets for the show at the Bridgewater hall in Manchester last Monday.

Her Christmas concert is based around old traditional versions of carols as sung around the pubs in South Yorkshire (a tradition that’s probably died out by now). Some of the songs were well known carols but sung to a different tune – for example While Shepherd’s watched sung to “On Ilkley Moor B’aht ‘at”. Apparently the tune was written for this carol by someone from Kent, and it was only later adopted for the Yorkshire national anthem. In fact she performed 3 versions in all of this well known carol, all set to different tunes. This is another one

She played with her band – two guitarists (one her husband), an accordionist and a double bassist, plus a five piece brass ensemble. The brass band gave it a real northern Christmassy feel.

As previous years, the concert was in 2 halves, finishing, after the encore, at 10. So they were on stage in total for over 2 hours, but it didn’t seem that long. So another enjoyable night out. And Christmas starts here!