LIVE: Little Red at O2 Academy 2 (18/11/16)

Last Friday night, Tigmus had our third of a season of four shows upstairs at the O2 Academy Oxford, this time with local folk trio Little Red headlining. Being a fairly special occasion they drafted in their backing band for the show, performing as a 6-piece with added drums, keys and bass, but keeping their acoustic harmonious charms, and performing as a trio for a little segment of the set. I'd been under the weather for a few days and I'd like to say that the tunes warmed me up, but the venue was totally freezing! 

Opening up the night of local acoustic music we had a solo performance from All Is Worth, aka Nathan Allsworth, who played bass for Little Red later in the night. His Facebook describes his music as "combining picked folk with a haunting edge", a pretty accurate summary. You can check out some of his music over on Bandcamp. Next up we doubled in band members and were treated to a set from folk duo The Lost Art who I'd seen at another small Tigmus show earlier in the year. I'm currently being mesmerised by their music video for Secret Life as it's a one-shot video - total sucker for those!

Next up, after ducking out of the venue I return and the stage is full to the brim with people as James Bell & the Half Moon All Stars, a 9-piece band with mandolin, flute, ukulele, fiddle (always a winner) and tons more instruments! They even had a kazoo towards the end of the set! Playing some traditional folk songs (which they do regularly in the local The Half Moon pub, hence the name) a highlight of the set was The Mary Ellen Carter, a cover of a Stan Rogers song. Check out a performance of that track below!

Last but by no means least our headliners Little Red took to the stage and the crowd, though not the biggest, were definitely up for a good Friday night. The set was made up of a couple of new tracks and others from their back catalogue, which you can check out on Bandcamp! Everyone was left feeling joyful and gave a wonderful round of applause to the band as they left the stage...

A 6 piece @littleredtrio leaving the @O2AcademyOxford stage to tons of applause last night 👏🏻👏🏻 @TIGmuso @TigmusInOxf pic.twitter.com/3E8rUlaOaV

— SUPERMegAN (@meg_seekings) November 19, 2016

Here's to many more Tigmus shows - although I have to admit losing my voice when running the door the night after for our show with The Balkan Wanderers is definitely a low point! Good news: I can talk now (albeit in a croaky, husky way.)