Wallingford doesn’t get a whole lot of gig action beyond its annual Bunkfest event, so worthy of note is a show at its Portcullis Social Club on Tuesday 11 December. The folky duo Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou are playing the venue as part of their nationwide ‘Up The Club’ tour of working mens and social clubs. In support, more shades of folk with Pepe Belmonte and The Dreaming Spires (the latter playing acoustically).
On Wednesday 12 December The Bullingdon in Oxford plays host to Darren Hayman, ex-Hefner and described by Stewart Lee as “the thinking person’s indie-pop legend, and unaccredited national treasure”. Money raised at this show will be donated to the Prince’s Trust. Top local support from My Crooked Teeth and Trev Williams.
Support ACHKI – the Afrikan and Afrikan Caribbean Kultural Heritage Initiative – by going to East Oxford Community Centre on Friday 14 December. There’s a night of “Afrikan food, pseudo-Afrikan music and completely not-Afrikan music” featuring Senegalese master kora player Jali Fily Cissokho (now a resident of Witney), along with Nairobi and Duchess. Interesting stuff all round!
The weekend of Saturday 15 December and Sunday 16 December sees a veritable snow flurry of winter festivals. (Deep breath…) Gappy Tooth’s Winter Warmer takes place over the whole weekend at the Wheatsheaf, Oxford, including performances from The Graceful Slicks, Ulysses Storm, Undersmile and Dallas Don’t; there’s the PinDrop Midwinter Festival on the Sunday, at St John The Evangelist Church in Oxford, with The Epstein and Wild Swim; the Irregular Folk Christmas Special at The Cellar, Oxford, also on that day, with Alphabet Backwards and more; and in Witney on the Sunday there’s the second Witney Winter Festival at Fat Lil’s, featuring The Scholars, Very Nice Harry and more. Choose your early Christmas present from that list!
There’s a couple of tip-top gigs featuring Oxford bands at Oxford venues on Thursday 20 December. At The Cellar the nautically-minded Listing Ships will be supported by electro-pop botherers Space Heroes Of The People; and at The Wheatsheaf Gunning For Tamar will be slotting elegantly in between Gnarwolves and Bear Trap to complete a stunnah of a line-up. Which is it gonna be?
Two special gigs curated by the Beard Museum label are taking place at St Albans Church: on Friday 21 December you can catch Trophy Wife, who’ll be performing along with a string section, and who’ll be supported by Kill Murray; on Saturday 22 December there’s a fine line-up of folk and singer-songwriter types with Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Adam Barnes, Phil McMinn and The Beard Museum Christmas Singers! (Not sure who those Christmas Singers are, but there’s only one way to find out…
Full details of these and loads more gigs can be found in the events calendar.
Tell us about gigs you’ll be checking out in the next two weeks in the comments!