THE folk juggernaut that is Bellowhead will be pulling into East Lancashire for the first time next weekend, promising music fans a live show they’ll never forget.

The 11-piece folk dance band that plays with the power of Led Zeppelin has been voted best live act in the BBC2 Folk Awards five times and nominated a further three times.

“With traditional music, live is everything,” said one of the band’s co-founders John Spiers.

“Even when we are recording we try to do that ‘as live’.

“When we got the band together initially we had no idea what it would sound like but after our first rehearsal we all looked at each other and thought ‘this could be awesome’.

The reason it works so well live is that the music was designed to be played that way. It connects with the audience and we all have a great time – it’s a lovely coincidence.

“The music we do is carefully put together at the rehearsal stage so that when we’re on stage it allows us to dance around and have a good time. We don’t really have to think in musical terms on stage, it’s all about the performance.”

John, one half of the award winning duo Spiers and Boden, said that the band’s shows attract music fans of all descriptions.

"Traditional music has always been around, it is, it is the music that people did for themselves,” he said. “Before the term pop was invented it was traditional music and it has a universal appeal.”

The current tour, which comes to King George’s Hall, Blackburn, next Sunday night sees Bellowhead playing at different venues around the country.

“We’ve deliberately set out to play places we’ve not been to before,” said John.

“We appreciate the effort that people have to make to get to our gigs when we play the big cities so we thought we’d try and get to people on their doorstep and make it easier for them to come out.

“Jon Boden and I have played Darwen and Burnley before and got a great response so we know it’s going to be a good night in Blackburn.”

Part of Bellowhead’s appeal is the variety of instruments which appear on stage. On average around 20 are played each show, some of them extremely obscure.

“We are all very into our respective areas of music,” said John. “We’re always looking around for unusual instruments and trawling eBay. If someone gets something they’ll bring it along to rehearsal and let everyone else hear it.

“I’ve just got a strange Thai bamboo reed organ which sounds amazing. I’ll take it along and I might get laughed at or you might hear it in one of our shows at some point.

“The band were much in demand at festivals through the summer and are now back on the road.

“We are a bit like a grown-up family that doesn’t live together but really enjoys meeting up again,” said John.

“Touring around the country can be mundane but for everyone the focus is on the night’s live show when we always go on stage to have as much fun as possible.”

  • Bellowhead, King George’s Hall, Blackburn, Sunday, November 10. Details from 0844 847 1664.