Spiers & Boden
Wednesday 4th March
Number 8 Arts Centre, 8 High St. Pershore. WR10 1BG
Doors: 19:30. Tickets: £23.50.
Box Office: 01386 555488. Email: enquiries@number8.org
For a quarter of a century, Spiers & Boden have stood at the vanguard of English traditional folk, both as a ground breaking duo and as founding members of the folk phenomenon Bellowhead. Few partnerships have shaped the modern folk landscape quite so decisively.
After a seven-year hiatus spent focusing on Bellowhead — their Universal Records–signed big band juggernaut — Jon Boden and John Spiers returned to duo form in 2021 with Fallow Ground (Hudson Records), a critically acclaimed album that marked a bold and assured new chapter. Since then, they’ve been taking their trademark high-octane, no-nonsense acoustic folk to packed venues across the UK, reminding audiences exactly why they remain such a formidable live force.
Described by The Guardian as “the finest instrumental duo on the traditional scene”, Spiers & Boden first burst onto the folk circuit in 2001, swiftly collecting a clutch of BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and cementing their reputation as one of the most loved — and most influential — duos in English folk music.
Fallow Ground is an album brimming with ideas, characterised by a renewed confidence and a willingness to let the material speak for itself. Its impact was immediate: reaching No. 3 on the UK & Ireland Official Folk Albums Chart in September 2021 and earning a place in Mojo magazine’s Top 10 Albums of the Year.
Sold-out tours and high-profile festival appearances have followed, and with new dates already being lined up for 2025 and 2026, Spiers & Boden show no signs of slowing down. Twenty-five years on, they remain not just torchbearers for the tradition, but artists who continue to push it thrillingly forward.
Stream ‘Fallow Ground’ here: https://bit.ly/3AvDG7Z