Skinny Lister

What a blistering night and what a complete surprise – I left the Lock Tavern feeling as though I’d gone ten rounds with the England rugby scrum but with a smile that had passers by looking on VERY questionably.

Coming to the end of their Narrowboat tour of the canals of Southern England, Skinny Lister played the Lock Tavern, a tiny room at the top of a rickety stair and that would be full with any more than fifty punters – they pulled in, I estimate, a hundred and fifty and left their audience happy and singing along with some great folk tunes and shanties.
Lorna, resplendent in a white summer dress and sun hat (needless to say it was teeming with rain) was exhorting the crowd to sing along, when she wasn’t calling for the rhum jug to be returned, and the crowd simply buzzed with enjoyment - and the band's rhum jug - as they went through a full repertoire of folk and more modern self-penned songs such as ‘Plough And Orion’ and ‘Trawlerman’.

I expected a genteel set of ‘nice’ folk and what I got was a raucous and rumbustious blast of happy-time dance music played with real skill and a great deal of heart.
Howard Marks was supposed to do an introduction but in the end no-one missed him, they were too busy having a good time.