Fortnightly Music Reviews from the streets of Teesside and beyond
Arborist, Hector Gannet, Angel’s Cut, Darlington, 5 May 2026
It is the evening after the Bank Holiday so things really ought to be quiet out, but I have taken the last seat available upstairs at Angel's Cut. The L shaped upstairs room might be rammed but you could hear a pin drop. We feel privileged to be able to get up so close and personal to the songwriters behind the bands. With the fairy lights twinkling to one side it is lovely setting for a Watermill session profiling two exceptional musical talents.
Or rather three talents, because Hector Gannett singer/guitarist Aaron Duff is joined tonight on keyboards by Alex Blamire. Having witnessed Hector Gannet the band, and also in solo form, the duo with the harmonising voices and keys and guitar makes for interestingly different arrangements of songs.
Named after the stricken fishing boat that his grandfather crewed Aaron's roots are never far from the surface. His powerful, emotive voice blasts out the clever wordplay of the lyrics. As he is at pains to point out the North Shields singer songwriter is really a long way from the Americana tag sometimes wrongly pinned to his sound. There are far more powerful trans-Atlantic bridges to be made to the underdog tales of Bruce Springsteen or in vocal sounding across the Irish Sea to Van Morrison. Or perhaps make that Morrison's because Aaron seems to be haunted or stalked by a phantom harmonica player whenever he shops at his local supermarket branch.
Arborist aka Mark McCambridge is a Northern Ireland singer songwriter with a glorious voice like golden syrup. His stripped down sound allows us to edge nearer not just to the singer but to the lyrics and melancholy moods imparted by his songs. Its deserted on the high street in Looking 4 Love. It is not how he imagines it, he sings in Matisse. He should have seen it in his head. We can picture it all in our heads. Because Arborist truly does paint pictures with his songs.
He even finds a corner of his set to cover Velvet Underground's Pale Blue Eyes before bursting into a purely vocal rendition of The Leaving of Liverpool. A song of emigration with overtones on both sides of the Irish Sea for those departing for the New World.
Mark calls up Aaron to accompany him on a song that also features a recording of a third living, wheezing, coughing sentient being in an ancient pump organ. Atmospheric, moving, soulful. Another special night at Angels Cut.
Words: Robert Nichols
Pictures: Jimm Barr
Arborist & Hector Gannet
Arborist
Loose Articles, Gaydar, KU Stockton, 8 May 2026
How Low Can You Go? The whole audience at the Ku Bar is limboing under the microphone wire. From side to side on the dance floor, under we go and yet not a drop of beer is spilled. All female band, Loose Articles song Unpaid Intern has turned party, with whistles, samba beats and rhythms and it has cascaded out and over the edge of the stage and down into the audience where the band are coaxing us to join in the action. And everyone does.
Before the Manchester band play it is the turn of north east 3-piece Gaydar to arrive in a blaze of dayglo colour and blistering punk riffs. Magnets.. “about having the tism” would have done justice to Jello Biafra and Dead Kennedys. They pull on masks as the intensity ramps up even further if that is even possible for the anxiety axe to swing in finale, Sweating Like A Bitch.
Scream If You Want To Go Faster, is the name of their debut album and so much of the ethos of Loose Articles. Expect thrills, spills, fun and limbo as well as some dynamic music from the north west 4 piece. The
music is a cheery, melodic fusion of twangy, punky rockabilly guitar, repetitive riffs and a sprinkling of arty synth breaks. They don't like buses but they'd rather have a beer with pals than join the coupling cattle market. More audience interaction reveals there are no welders in the house and so 2020 single Are You A Welder? is morphed into Are You a Binman?
Vocals are shared in contrasting style between guitarist and bassist. The guitarist then checks out our man Mal. “OK, Hun?” after his bout of frenzied dancing. He is fine and returns to the action and dives back in for Guitars, Cars, Knickers and Bras is a front on grungy punk attack to misogyny. They will be taking applications later at the merch stand for Be My Bitch.
Top music, outstanding songs and messaging. Plenty of personality. Great fun.
Words: Robert Nichols
Pictures: Tracy Hyman
Nel Unlit, Harriet Bradshaw, Benjamin Amos, Angel’s Cut, Darlington, 9 May 2026
The delightful Angel's Cut is rammed for the highly anticipated return of Nel Unlit, playing their first gig for a couple of years. The ever evolving line up contains no percussion tonight in the intimate setting of the upstairs room of the Darlington bar. But Benjamin Amos is over from Northern Ireland and sets the night under way with a sumptuous solo set. Ben switches between guitar and keyboard previewing new song Colours a moving song written around a sudden bereavement. Also from the new EP Ben admits to having Lost My Way as he applied for a job back home in Northern Ireland.
Harriet Bradshaw is back up from the south east. She has some of her debut album for sale but holds her hands up that all her set is drawn from the follow up that she plans to record later this year and release in 2027. The skilled multi instrumentalist is playing acoustic guitar and singing with that amazing voice that would have been right at home in the 1960s folk scene. Harriet swaps between different guitar tunings. She takes it easy with Treacle. She sits at the keyboards for Smoke, blowing smoke rings at our feet in a wistful fashion. Put me in the hot seat I don't have the answers she sings but perhaps is saving them for her cello and vocals with Nel Unlit.
Ben and Harriet take their places on stage in a rare live outing for the outstanding Nel Unlit. Flute, strings, keyboards, guitars and four lead and harmonising vocals singing lyrics about everything from hoarders to songs inspired by Neil Gaiman. New bassist Rob makes a seamless debut, next to Clare on strong voice, keyboards and flute. Jon Horner is always precise with his own vocal delivery, setting the scene with the wordplay. Like the stories told, the music is multi layered and stirring stuff. Melodic and dramatic. Built up on the elevating, energising guitars and cello. Absolutely gorgeous.
Words: Robert Nichols Pictures: Tracy Hyman
Nel Unlit
Benjamin Amos
Hark! The Sound of Stories: On Sycamore Gap by Kate Fox and Staithe, support from Staithe, Kate Fox, Bridget Hamilton Crown Street Library, Darlington, 15 May 2026
The morning after the night before, the felling of the iconic Sycamore in Northumberland had reverberations far beyond the lands immediately around Hadrian's Wall. Brought to international fame by Kevin Costner's Robin Hood film the sycamore that once plugged the delve in the course of the Roman wall was as much an icon of the north east as the man made Angel of the North. The sudden shocking act of vandalism of the tree felling, felt almost like a personal attack on everyone that held the “natural” wonder so dear.
Poet, stand up comic and broadcaster Kate Fox was commissioned to write a book about The Sycamore Gap. It was then set to the beautiful, emotional music of Staithe for this memorable performance. There could not be a more perfect setting to hear this performance than this beautifully restored Victorian gem of Darlington Library and Hark! a platform that brings the literary and music worlds together.
Staithe are Bridie Jackson on piano, vocals and classical
guitar and Nick Pierce viola. It was actually the first birthday of the duo's wonderful album, Flowers. And so it was very apt that Bridie (once of the Arbour) and Nick should begin the evening with a selection from their debut long player. They were joined on stage by Bridget Hamilton reading from her first novel We Wait Fir The Stars which is released in July. A tender work written entirely in verse about a teenager coming to terms with the sudden death of her beloved father.
On Sycamore Gap mined all the emotions, as Kate and Staithe exposed the roots, trunk and canopy of the fallen tree. We learned natural history, archaeology, invoked the spirit of Coventina the nearby Spring Goddess. We were not spared from the loss but we also tried to understand and re-evaluate. There was also so much hope for the future in the beauty of the music and the green shoots of Kate's words. Words that flowed but struck home. At the close of the evening our host, Fran from Tracks, was moved to tears she struggled to speak such was the power of this performance.
Words: Robert Nichols Pictures: Tracy Hyman
Staithe
CLAIRE HAMILL – Originally from Port Clarence and having spent some of her childhood in Staithes, Claire was signed to a label as a teenager to find fame as a singer/songwriter in London and overseas. Her first album, One House Left Standing, was released back at the start of the 1970s, but she has now released her 12th studio album A House Among The Trees, having played two sold out gigs at Toft House, Middlesbrough as part of the latest tour. Claire has never forgotten her early roots and formative years, the Transporter Bridge featuring on the front of the first long player.
I started by asking Claire about her appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test, and was it true that she mentioned Boro skinheads and got reprimanded for it?
Claire: Oh, yes, that's true. I've always been, you know, kind of authentic. So my brother Damien was a skinhead at the time. My first name's Josephine, Josephine Claire Hamill. That's my full name. I was our Joe, you know. My brother said, oh, Joe, if you ever go on telly, will you dedicate a song to me and the Middlesbrough skinheads?
And I went, yes, of course I will. And of course I remembered it. So there I am in the live spot on the Old Grey Whistle Test. You can't get rid of it. John McCoy is up in the control room and I'm going, I'd like to dedicate the next song to all the Middlesbrough skinheads and my brother Damien.
John McCoy went, what on earth is she doing that for? I mean, he couldn't do anything. It was already done. Oh, it was terrible. And then I got b*ll*cked afterwards.
What did you do that for? I'm sorry, John. It's just, I remembered our Damien saying, would I dedicate a song? But that bit of footage is gone now, which is a real shame. So it's just in my memory. Very funny.
Off The Beat: When you come back and you play the back-to-back gigs at Toft House? Is that like a real homecoming for you?
Claire: It's absolutely lovely, yeah. Alan Fearnley was there. And, you know, some old school friends, some lasses from the convent came.
And, you know, people that have heard of me, wanted to see me. It's wonderful to get support. And I just adore being back in Middlesbrough. I stay with my friend, Rosie Potter. My brothers and Kieran came along and my cousin, Karen. It's just a great opportunity to be with everybody.
Usually I book it so that I can go to Whitby Folk Festival afterwards. So I've done it, the previous times, I've done it at the end of August. I sneakily said to Leigh Sayers, who runs the Toft House gigs. I said, Leigh, if we come back again (you know, there's no guarantees that anybody will want you) we're coming back in August next year, Leigh. And he went, yeah, okay, Claire. Okay, Claire.
And then I can skip off to Whitby Folk Week with my brother and have some fun there. I'm going to be there this year actually, because I'm bringing my American friend, Rory Flynn. She's coming over to visit me and no doubt I'll have to sing for my supper in the pubs. Incognito, of course.
OTB: I think you might get rumbled.
Claire: No, don't you worry. I'll wear a flat cap and a raincoat. Nobody will recognise me.
OTB: Tell us about your new album (created in collaboration with Sean Elliott, Sonny Flint and John Nicholls)? A House Among the Trees, is that right?
Claire: It's more rocky, definitely more rocky. When you get together with some rock musicians, you're not going to play folk, are you?
You’re going to play to their strengths. And so I was inspired to write some music that was good for the sound of the band that I was working with.
And I'm really pleased with what I came up with. There's some real, I think, great songs on the album. My friend Paul said, you've put out too, too much music, Claire. You put out an album in August of eight tracks and now you've put one of 12 tracks.
It is a long album, you know, it's 55 minutes. You can discover it track by track and the different flavours, but there are some sentimental ones on there Some others are quite bolshy. There's one about being bullied or standing up to bullies called Cool.
You know you just stand there, you know, shouting your mouth off and I'm just cool. That was probably the last song I wrote, inspired by somebody who did try and bully me.
And I thought, no, I'm not having this. So I put them in a song, just to get my own back. They'll never know it's them of course, because people like that, their ego is so inflated. They can't possibly think that I'd be thinking about them. So yeah. Funny old world, isn't it?
OTB: It's lovely that you've been able to do so many different styles, but are they all you?
Claire: They're all me. They all come out of me. They're all my sentiment. They're all my words. You know, I loved playing with lyrics in that particular song, Cool.
My favourite line is, “And I can walk along a slender wall and not fall.” I love that line. Cause slender is such a great word. You know what I mean? And I think in each of my songs, if there's a line that I love, or if I can get an ending to the song that really just is the punchline, you know, it's always great. Yeah. It's wonderful, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to write songs. It's amazed me that I have been able to find inspiration this late in my life, really.
But the next thing I want to do is write a blooming book. Cause everybody said, Claire, write a book because, you know ,you've had a long career. And, I know that the early days are the ones that the fans are most going to want to hear about, because they want to hear about John Martin and King Crimson and all of the people that I was hanging out with back in the day.
And I know the lads are going to be keen on that bit, but the girls are all going to want to know who I was sleeping with. That's what they want to know, who is she going out with?
Oh, it's a funny old world. So yeah, I'll be doing the book next, I hope. But yeah I'm interested in exploring lots of music. I don't want to be pigeonholed. I know it's a bad idea if you want to make money, but I've never bothered about the money really. Money been, been, my, my raison d'être. It was always the music, the art, you know, always that.
OTB: And you continue to love playing live as well?
Claire: I love playing live.
OTB: Because it's in your blood, isn't it? It's in your blood from being a young girl, I guess.
Claire: It's in my blood. I am my grandma's granddaughter, you know. She lives on in me and she was
the same, she loved it. But, we would always say, ‘cause we called her mother, oh, mother, give us a song. And she'd pick up her port and lemon and she'd go, not until I've had my bird seed.
And then she'd sip the port and lemon. She always wanted a little drink before she'd get going.
She was so cute. Really good. What a woman. Just like my mom, but my mom had my grandfather. So she was a little bit more sensible. My grandfather was a wonderful man. His mother was from County Durham and his father was from Northern Ireland. And they were built, you know. His father, my great grandfather, came over from County Armagh, and there were five boys. They used to walk down the road, you know, abreast like that.
They all came to work in the shipyard, you know, and my grandfather was a labourer and a very fit guy, but a darling. He loved his family. He was a good Catholic and he really was a man to admire because he was quiet. He's had no education, but he was a solid working man, you know, somebody you could respect. And I adored him. And my grandmother was the opposite. She was flirty and flighty, but, oh, just adorable too.
So, you know, it's been a lucky life.
Thank you so much to Claire Hamill – please check out her new release as the Claire Hamill Band, A House Among The Trees, and then maybe dive through that incredible back catalogue. And hopefully we will see her again playing at Toft House next August.
Words: Robert Nichols
Our Man In The Field
Lim Orion, Bellyful, The Woven Project, Lost In The Woods DJ Collective
Chelsea, Johnny Seven, Grant Schofield (DJ)
NDC College - Amplified
Industrial Coast: IC41 – An Industrial Art Incident: Globadelica, Gary Wilkinson, IC41 One Deck/Open Deck
Melanie S. Jane, The Arcadias, J.W. Darwin
The Cornastones
Pretentious, Zeta Point, Leaders of Men
Crossing The Tees Book Festival: Girls to the Front –Lucy Nichol, Bob Fischer, Lottie Turner
4Play: Tired Of Fighting, Motions, Monarchs, Rare Breed
Jay Moussa-Mann: The Lady Vanishes – Album Launch Show
Saltburn Arts Community Theatre, Saltburn
Listings subject to change, please check with
before booking.
Train Station (to Marske Cricket Club)
Illuminate (dance and musical theatre)
Solstice: Gents & Ginger, Chloë Wilson, Izzy Neish
Spyderz, Jake Holt, Reece
Theatre
Pealie’s Barn, Northallerton
Up Music Bar and Venue,
-on-Tees Withered Hand
Three Day Week, DJ Miller
Elaine Palmer, Anna Karila
Perfect Chicken, Wet Man, Battery Farm
s Live Summer Party
Gilbert O’Sullivan
Rob Jones and the Restless Dream, Lost State of Dan
The Listening Post Charity Gig: Memoria, Falling Fortune, Carapace
Summerblast: Glad Town Ghost, Harlan Frank and the Houseplants, Ian Harrison, Pretentious
Glastonbeery – The Tainted Covers + previous Glastonbury coverage on the big screen
Provenance, Guilty Pleasure, Limerance
Industrial Coast: Saint Abdullah, Eomac
Courtroom, Middlesbrough Town Hall
Angel’s Cut, Darlington
Princess Alexandra Auditorium, Yarm
Causeway Inn, Hartlepool
The Georgian Theatre, Stockton-on-Tees
Stockton-on-Tees
Listings subject to change, please check with the venue’s website for full information before booking.
Committee of Sleep, Cybill Ends, Laura Cunningham, Emmanuelle Wrightson
Dylan Flynn & The Dead Poets, George Bailey, Crescent
Rare Breed, Indigo, Detonata
Summerblast: Hart Beatles, Zeus, White Negroes, Odins Revenge, Misguided Grace, The Kets, Beauty and the Beat
Mixwave: Jim Soler, The Ransoms, The Aniseed Lounge, Artemis, Will Metcalfe
The Lathums
Glastonbeery – The Shambles Country Music Church + previous Glastonbury coverage on the big screen
Tom Joshua, Sam Airey
Imogen and the Knife
Preston Simpson and Sterndale Young Musician’s Trust: A Celebration of Music
Pop Through The Ages –presented by the Contemporary Community Choir
Mascaras Lies, Spyders, Pterodactyls
Glastonbeery – Lee Maddison + previous Glastonbury coverage on the big screen
Dovecote Festival 2026
26 June £8 7.45pm Café Etch, Middlesbrough
26 June £10 + bf 7pm KU Stockton
26 June £6 + bf £9 OTD 7pm Vixen Bar, Hartlepool
27 June £8 + bf 3pm The Causeway Inn, Hartlepool
27 June £4 + bf 3.30pm The Forum, Darlington
27 June £25 + bf 5pm KU Stockton
27 June £6 + bf 6pm The Georgian Theatre, Stockton-on-Tees
27 June £11.50 7pm The Courtroom, Middlesbrough Town Hall
27 June £12 + bf 7pm Pealie’s Barn, Northallerton
27 June £5 + bf £4 + bf (restricted) 7pm Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre
27 June £18 + bf £6 + bf U13 7.30pm Princess Alexandra Auditorium, Yarm
27 June £8 7.45pm Café Etch, Middlesbrough
28 June £4 + bf 12pm The Georgian Theatre, Stockton-on-Tees
28 June £10.50 + bf (incl. barbecue)
£3.50 + bf (performance only) 3pm Princess Alexandra Auditorium, Yarm
Listings subject to change, please check with the venue’s website for full information before booking.
Off The Beat with Robert Nichols and Tracy Hyman
Roman Candle presents Jim Ghedi, Tom Blackwell, Caitlin Gilligan
Industrial Coast: Glyn Maier
Andrew Johnson, Anna Karila, Izzy Neish
28 June £14 + bf 7pm The Green Room, Stockton-on-Tees
29 June £10
£6 cost of living
30 June £7 + bf
7pm Café Etch, Middlesbrough
7.30pm The Forum, Darlington
Chapelfest 2026
6 June 2026
Munro Festival
6 June 2026
Deer Shed Festival
24 - 26 July 2026
Fire Dance Festival
24 - 26 July 2026
Saltburn Folk Festival
7 - 9 August 2026
Lindisfarne Festival
3 - 5 September 2026
Last Train Home Festival
5 September 2026
Tees Folk 2026
19 September 2026
The Gathering Sounds
26 September 2026
Headland Folk Festival
2 - 4 October 2026
Listings subject to change, please check with the venue’s website for full information before booking.