After the Poets… Solo Jez… Then Christmas Tour…

The six-week-long Pitmen Poets tour came to a close last weekend in Alnwick, Northumberland, after 30-odd gigs around the UK, for what was easily the quartet’s most successful tour yet. The show played to packed houses at almost every venue they visited, and the mixture of coal mining songs, political songs, sharp humour and good-natured on-stage banter was a sure-fire winner with audiences everywhere. The lads’ latest album, “Bare Knuckle” was selling by the truckload at every gig, and its contemporary and pointed messages in song really struck home in these turbulent times. This was not a nostalgic show about the UK’s industrial past, but a sharp take on modern Britain wherein the lessons of the past have not been learned and people from every walk of life rallied to the call that was so vividly extolled by the four men on stage. Of course, this was prominently billed as a “Farewell Tour”, and that alone was a big attraction for the public, and as far as “touring” is concerned, that remains the case – for now. Whether the intense reaction and acclaim that the shows have attracted will influence that situation, who knows? At any rate, there is a one-off appearance by The Pitmen Poets scheduled at The Great British Folk Festival in Skegness in January, and the possibility of more single shows cannot be ruled out…
Meanwhile, Jez is back on the road solo at the end of this month and into early December, followed by a Christmas Tour with The Bad Pennies which starts at Halsway Manor in Somerset on December 7th. The tour is titled “That Snow Joke!” and will conclude with TWO shows, at 3pm and 8pm, at Gateshead’s Sage concert hall on December 23rd.