page_title: Live at the Royal Albert Hall (Show of Hands album)
section_title: Music
hierarchical_section_title: Live at the Royal Albert Hall (Show of Hands album) / Music
caption_attribution_description: English: Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, London Royal Albert Hall as seen from Kensington Gardens.
context_page_description: Live at the Royal Albert Hall is the second live album by English acoustic roots duo Show of Hands. Following the success of their stripped-down fifth studio album Lie of the Land, the duo experienced attention from major publications, who praised the album, and the duo's fan base had built. Nonetheless, the duo were unable to commerce any performances in London. Their duo and their manager and producer Gerard O'Farrell took the gamble of hosting the city's historic Royal Albert Hall for a concert on 24 March 1996. The concert would be an attempt to gather all of the duo's fans and to raise the duo's profile. The duo were ridiculed for booking the hall, with many saying the performance would not sell out. Nonetheless, not only did the performance sell out, but it did so with advance orders, and it raised the duo's profile.
  Producer and manager Gerard O'Farrell recorded the event for a live album on the cost of £200, and the duo released it on their own label Hands on Music in August 1996. It was released to positive reviews, with one review stating that it "stands alone as a showcase for the best of the band's repertoire over the last couple of years."
context_section_description: The show took place on 24 March 1996, and featured various guest musicians. The album is slightly condensed from the performance and slightly re-arranged. The performance opened, as does the album, with "Columbus (Didn't Find America)", the title track of the band's 1993 extended play, written by Knightley during the duo's time with Alianza. The song is a protest song about the Spanish exploitation of the New World. The duo then performed "Day Has Come", a song from Beat about the Bush, but the music had been re-arranged, although the lyrics stayed the same. This was followed by Lie of the Land song "The Preacher", non-album track "Cutthroats, Crooks and Conmen", and two traditional tracks, "The Blue Cockade", which had featured on Beat about the Bush, and "The Soldiers Joy", at which point hints the band will play the "one about the horses" later, referring to "The Galway Farmer".
  The band's long-standing live staple "Exile" plays next, which had recently been revisited following its re-recording on Lie of the Land,  followed by "The Man in Green", Jacques Brel's "The Dove", "The Well", Lie of the Land opening track "The Hunter", which briefly, near its conclusion, incorporates an excerpt of "In the Jungle". This is followed by "Captains", the traditional track "The Blind Fiddler", and "Santiago", another track that dates from the Alianza days, and features on their only album. The main set closed with "The Galway Farmer", which features a fast fiddle solo from Beer. The song is about is about an Irishman betting on a horse at a race at Cheltenham Racecourse and winning, despite being ridiculed beforehand. After a minute following the performance of the song after the band had left the stage, they returned to the stage to perform an encore of the Cyndi Lauper song "Time After Time", featuring a squeezebox.
  Sally Barker sings backing vocals on "Columbus (Didn't Find America)" and "Captains". Vladimir Vega performs pan pipes on "Columbus (Didn't Find America)", including prominently in the intro of the song, as well as on "The Hunter" and "Santiago", also performing backing vocals on the latter with Matt Clifford, who also performed backing vocals on "Columbus (Didn't Find America)" which he also played keyboards on, as well as on "Exile". "The Well" and "The Galway Farmer" feature pipes from Nick Scott, accordion from Sarah Allen and whistle from Biddy Blythe, who also plays flute on "The Galway Farmer".
  The duo themselves play a wide range of instruments. Steve Knightley sings lead vocals on all songs, aside from the instrumental "The Soldiers Joy", guitar on eleven of the tracks, cello-mandolin on four of the tracks, cuatro on "The Preacher" and concertina on "Time After Time". Phil Beer sings backing vocals on nine of the tracks, plays the fiddle on five of the tracks, guitar on three tracks, the cello-mandolin on four tracks, cuatro on three tracks and mandolin on "The Hunter".
caption: The Royal Albert Hall, where the album was recorded
exif: {}