York Calling

A lovely review of our gig on Saturday from York Calling:

“Straight in for a light hearted start to the evening, and fresh from the Cornucopia Festival that day, were incredibly exciting gypsy/Celtic folk rock/acoustic five-piece Leather’o. With full on fiddles and flutes, these guys and gals were high energy throughout. Far from flagging after a full day of performing, they were both brilliantly tight and incredibly vibrant, with their whistles, accordion and guitar.

They whisked you away to mountain tops, valleys (and ice caps?) with their eastern European violins in God Give Me Strength. The fantastic mandolin solo soaring you high above the clouds and down to little village squares full of dance and gossip. Calling us all to the floor then with frisky recorders came From The New Country. The room then in full swing, the accordion gave way to an extra Irish whistle for a magical Celtic lilt.”

Backstage at Cornucopia

We opened the World Music Stage in the Big Top at the Cornucopia Festival this weekend. What a lovely atmosphere and what a great crowd, so early in the afternoon! Here we are backstage just before we went on (Bob’s behind the iPhone and Angie is elsewhere, no doubt beating some sense into her accordion).

We’ve been promised some of the pictures from the official photographer, so we’ll add those when we get them.

Howsham Mill – daytime open air music

There will be music and crafters from 10am until about 4.30pm at this recently restored mill on Saturday and Sunday 12-13 October. It will be a lovely family event with lots to explore and a chance to soak up the history and tranquillity of this unique location.

Leather’o will be playing on the open air stage around 3.30pm on Sunday 13 September.

Find more information at the Howsham Mill website

Cornucopia Festival, 26 September

We will be playing The Cornucopia Festival at Burton Constable Hall on Saturday 26 September. We’re on stage at 12.15pm. See you there!

York Little Festival of Live Music

Leather’o Full Strength!

The band members are mostly back from their travels – we’re just waiting for the safe return of Jack, our mandolin player from the Far East. Soon after our fiddle player, Rachel arrived back from Borneo we played an impromptu late night session with a couple of guest percussionists at Linds’ birthday party. This is what it looked like before the night really got going:

We were sad to hear about the cancellation of the Galtres Festival, where we would have been playing on Saturday night.

Summer with Leather’o

Summer’s here and we’ve got a full diary of gigs for the next few months – some at new venues like The Fossgate Social in York, some at favourite venues like The Snickleway Inn in York and The Fauconberg Arms in Coxwold, plus several more festivals in York and The East Riding. We’re also playing a private party in September – don’t forget you can book us for your private event!

Meanwhile, Jack our mandolin player is in Cambodia for a couple of months [stop press! he’s back!], Rachel our fiddle player is off to Borneo and Angela continues to tour with Mostly Autumn. At least four of us will be playing at all our gigs and we’re hoping a jet-lagged Jack will be back in time for our set at Galtres / Parklands Festival – 9.45pm on Saturday night in The Buzzard Bar for a longer (45 minute) set than last year! [Oops! Galtres is no more – cancelled!]

We still have copies of our EP Five available that you can buy at any of our gigs or from Amazon or iTunes (or stream from Google Play, Spotify or Napster). All our gig dates are shown on the forthcoming gigs page of this website and on our Facebook page. See you soon!

Photographs courtesy of Yellow Mustang: