Gig reviews – The Live Room

Oct 31 2025

Rod Picott – The Farewell Tour

Sunday 19th October 2025

Review, photos, videos by Keith Belcher

This was the last time we’ll see Rod here at The Live Room, as he is hanging up his guitar to concentrate on writing from now on. We’re sad to see him go but grateful for a lovely show to end with.

(First up)…we had the beautiful voice and guitar of Gráinne Hunt opening for Rod Picott. Monaghan born and getting rave reviews Grainne was first seen by Ron and Hilary in Kansas in 2024 (they call it work!). She stepped in at the last minute to open for Rod.

From the opening notes of Between the Pines we knew we were in for a treat. After Rod Picott’s opening song he said: “What a beautiful opening set that was. I was sitting there listening and I thought , S**t, this is like a bird opening for a lawn mower”.

Rod was indeed in the audience listening just as intently as the TLR crowd. That’s pretty good praise as I doubt many people describe Rod’s voice as a lawnmower. A short but very good set. I have no doubt she will be back at TLR in the future.

Rod’s “Retirement” farewell tour arrived at Saltaire. He announced it as being sponsored by “Viagra and the early bird special at BeefEaters” ….Many very funny stories, songs and wry observations of the differences noted and experienced within European cultures from Rod’s 25 years plus of touring. Even a discussion about The Archers on Radio 4.

Fifteen albums to his credit between 2001 and 2023. He was 36 when his first album was released in 2001. He said it’s all he’s wanted to do since he was 10. He is planning to devote himself to writing . He is a rare talent , having written with the likes of longtime friend Slaid Cleaves (friend since school days) and Fred Eaglesmith and many more. The wealth of the songs played tonight demonstrated that. It all comes to an end at The Greys Brighton on November 3rd.

videos by keith belcher

Rod Picott: Gettin' To Me

Rod Picott: Girl From Arkansas

Rod Picott: River Runs & Badlands

Gráinne Hunt: Let Go

Gráinne Hunt: Water & Aire

Oct 22 2025

Bronwynne Brent 2025

Sunday 12th October 2025

Review, photos and review by Keith Belcher

Sunday 12th October. The Live Room, Caroline Street Social Club, Saltaire. The 5th visit of Bronwynne Brent from Greenville , Mississippi. This visit as a trio comprising Bronwynne on lead vocals and acoustic guitar with Texan Chris Maresh on bass and Graeme Stephen, Scotland on electric guitar.

As one might gather from a 5th appearance Bronwynne is a firm favourite at The Live Room. Bronwynne did, however, ask for a show of hands on who hadn’t seen her before and there were quite a few souls who were in for a quite unique experience. Bronwynne is , without doubt, a one off. I can’t think of anyone like her. Her voice and songs and overall sound and approach to performing are very distinctive.

Her album , Stardust, saw her voted Female Performer of the Year twice in a row by Americana UK and called up for television and radio appearances on the BBC. Listening and watching Bronwynne (and I have seen Bronwynne far more than 5 times) I thought of some words of the late, great Kris Kristofferson. Joni Mitchell had played her album Blue to Kris and staggered by the extreme vulnerability and openness displayed on the album. He said “God, Joni, save something of yourself”.

In a similar fashion Bronwynne’s songs are very intimately personal and her on-stage dialogue is basically brain to mouth with no filters in-between. If a train of thought occurs, she follows and shares it with the audience. You don’t really get “well rehearsed and relatively safe ad-libbing” as song intros, it’s what she’s thinking at the time and it’s shared in real time. It’s sometimes very funny , always very honest sometimes the threads and train of thought are lost but it is quite unique and her vocals are superb.

There were explorations of all the back albums tonight and a few new songs from the next one . Some quite different arrangements of the songs very ably played by Graeme and Chris. Some guitar and bass runs that drew spontaneous applause mid song. This was one of the great nights of 2025 at TLR and I have no doubts that Bronwynne would be very welcome to do a 6th visit at the club.

videos by keith belcher

Lost in the Moonlight

Raincoat

If You Go Away

Aug 7 2025

Eve Selis: Dark Sky Blue

Plus support Florence Sommerville

Sunday 20th July 2025

Photos and videos by Keith Belcher, review by Mike Latham

Well, that certainly felt like an event that should come with a warning; though, to be fair to Eve, she did set out what she was going to do throughout her set.

Eve took us through her darkest times explicitly. Her art was to try and make sense of what was happening, events far beyond her control and make something out of it to provide a counter to the wide range of emotions that she faced during those times and beyond. That she was able to find that support and resilience to bring her out of those depths was great but then she used her skills as an artist and collaborator to offer those opportunities and solutions to others in her words and music.

The straw poll that Eve carried out at the start showed that nearly the whole room had been affected in similar ways. Her songs supported everyone through those early stages and took them through ways of finding solutions and resilience of their own to emerge with hope and positivity for the future. An emotional rollercoaster certainly but to relive that through each performance as she sings those songs shows the strength of her art. As you say, Eric, powerful.

Special mention must also go to the guitar work of Sam Hunt and the cello of David Hornberger. Both musicians brought a different dimension to the performance than we experienced from Eve before, mirroring the discord of those earlier songs, ‘Monster’ in particular and taking us through to the calm of ‘Grace’ and the positivity of ‘I choose Love’.

All in all, a totally unexpected but emotional and, ultimately, positive experience. We’ve had plenty of great shows this year but Eve’s performance was outstanding.

Thanks to Ron and Hilary, as always.

The evening started off with a beautiful set from Essex singer songwriter, Florence Sommerville, a young artist with a big future ahead of her. Having just launched her debut album, Endless Horizon, she is busy esrablsihing herself on the touring circuit and is also beginning to make waves over at the home of Americana music in Nashville. She’s a gifted songwriter and singer with great stage presence. Look out for her!

videos by keith belcher

Broken Pieces by Florence Sommerville

Cut And Run by Florence Sommerville

Dark Sky Blue by Eve Selis

Monster

Jul 8 2025

Demi Marriner Band

Sunday 8th June 2025

Photos, videos & review by Keith Belcher

Sunday 8th June 2025. The Live Room Saltaire. Demi Marriner & Band.

Opening for the Demi Marriner band were The Steady Habits fronted by Connecticut born Sean C Duggan. The Steady Habits can be a duo, trio or quartet, (occasionally a quintet). Tonight they were a duo of Sean C Duggan, main vocal, guitar and harmonica and Cathy Ife on vocals and guitar. Joe Coombs who was playing guitar tonight for Demi Marriner is also a member of Steady Habits along with Jamie Dawson. Both Joe and Jamie are very familiar to TLR regulars.

Sean has a truly excellent voice, very reminiscent of Jason Isbell when playing solo. Excellent harmonica. Great songs and music. On the performance tonight, I, for one, would like to see the entire band at TLR in the future. Ron and Hilary have plans afoot, watch this space.

Demi Marriner Band is Demi, main vocals and guitar, Joe Coombs, vocals and guitars, Garry Kroll , drums and percussion and Scott Warman vocals and bass.

Wow!! immediately sprang to mind. I have been to a lot of great TLR shows since the venue opened in 2012 but I was staggered by the sheer energy of this performance. Demi and the band were on fire and it really showed. All the stops were pulled out. They were really enjoying playing, the audience were enjoying hearing and seeing, and the energy cycled between the stage and the floor and it just kept feeding on itself.

There are a couple of shots I’ve used just because of what I thought at the time. It was very difficult to pick a selection of shots to use, there were so many great ones.

On one shot Scott (bass) is laughing and for some reason when I saw that I started hearing the tune to ‘Start Me Up’ by The Stones but was hearing ‘You make a bass player Smile’ instead of the usual lines about grown men crying .

I’ve photographed Joe quite a few times and have never caught outright laughter when he is playing , the shot is out of focus but to me it just captured the mood. Likewise the final shot of Demi is heavily cropped but seemed to capture Demi’s feelings at the end of the show.