LIVE REVIEW: The Unthanks With The Royal Northern Sinfonia @ The Glasshouse, Gateshead (30.01.26)

Image: The Unthanks by Topher Grills

2026 marks twenty years since The Unthanks came together (known back then as Rachel Unthank & The Winterset) and 19 since I first saw them in a folk club in a tiny room above an Islington pub. I’ve seen them countless times since then (comfortably 30 plus) and my love for what they do is untarnished. So this isn’t going to be an especially balanced review.

Running a folk outfit in today’s straitened times isn’t cheap, and it’s always impressive the way The Unthanks can slip easily from an a cappella trio to a many-headed chamber-folk behemoth depending on circumstances, but for this brief anniversary tour they’ve collaborated with the Northern Royal Sinfonia for something especially auspicious. And throughout, the arrangements are a delight, never overpowering the songs, full of subtlety and surprises (you get the feeling that pianist/arranger/musical director Adrian McNally is in his element here).

Kicking off with a gorgeous The Great Silkie Of Sule Skerry (all ebbing and flowing harmonies), the first set mostly concentrates on Mount The Air, probably their career highpoint and celebrating its tenth anniversary. There was a version of The Sandgate Dandling Song, a long-time favourite of Rachel’s, and while I tend to prefer her sparse, unaccompanied version, tonight’s orchestral take was amazing, building to a rich, Romantic climax. It’s inevitable that the first set should end with Mount The Air, full of heartstring-tugging melodies, clog dancing and The Unthanks’ secret weapon, Lizzie Jones, whose searing, soaring trumpet is always a wonder.

Set two begins with a lovely The Snow It Melts The Soonest, one of the very best folk tunes, and continues to navigate their whole career, from a stunning The Last to a rousing Lucky Gilchrist. I guess if I have a criticism – and I don’t, really – I wish the set had included more very early songs, with Felton Lonnin – here, presented with an almost modernist, abrasive arrangement that worked wonderfully – the only inclusion from the Winterset days. And then comes King Of Rome at the end (if you don’t count the Mount The Air reprise for an encore): I’m dead hard and I like the Butthole Surfers and Big Black, and yet – not for the first time – I was entirely undone by a song about a fucking pigeon. So it goes.

I love The Unthanks.