The Last Gig (almost)

I’m back home looking out at the landscape which has been transformed by snow, again. There is something magical about the first snow, and it brings something very useful at this dark time of year, light.
The shows last week in Denmark were strange, these were my last with Oysterband playing the Oysterband set, although there is the rest of a tour with the band and June Tabor yet to go. The strangeness comes from the fact that there is no real last gig. Which should it be? The last festival, the last UK show, the last band show, the last one with June? I have always regarded every show as the the last gig anyway, and tried to play it that way.

When I look back on a long career and all the tours and festivals completed, there is a linear sense of the shows existing over time. But that is just how the dates look on paper, in reality the music exists in the present, as it is being played, and that is how it has the power, for the player and the listener alike, to drive away all thoughts of past and future. That is why, as I played the last show last week, I just played and sang as I always do, it was another show.
Having said that, there may be a few fans who were very conscious this was the last time, but I hope, while the music was playing, that they were just as caught up in it as I was.
I have been very touched by all the good wishes I have received from everybody and I know that many are sad that I am leaving. Thank you again for all that.