Tim Baker - Hare on the Hill, Bristol Jan. 31, '20

Nico Paulo

Stepping into The Hare on the Hill I found myself entering a very intimate show already underway. In fact, I nearly trod on Nico's toes as she was stood by the bench seat in the corner of the pub playing her set. With it being ticketed entrance only, the entire bar's attention was fixated on the entertainer, and by proximity me as I intruded on this. The positive to come out of this was the great vantage point that I held for the rest of the night, even if it meant guarding the door for all other latecomers. This being a music blog I should speak about Nico who played some delicate songs on her guitar, with her whisper-strong voice. She was endearing and won over the crowd easily, myself included, even having walked in never hearing her name, let alone her music before.

Mark J. Lee

A dapper, local English musician playing some pretty standard country music. He'd been on the bill so I'd briefly checked him out beforehand and knew that it wasn't really my style, however I'm happy to report it was better live. Especially happy considering there wasn't really anywhere else to go during the set.

Tim Baker

Finally the reason I had rushed home from work abroad and then driven down to Bristol. Tim took to the "stage" with a few different instruments scattered around; a couple guitars, a banjo, and perhaps most importantly, the pub's piano right up against the wall beside him. Starting out expectedly with a few from his first and only solo album thus far, Forever Overhead, he then veered from that (and away from any setlist). Dance is a brilliantly romantic opening tune, both on record and live, that he started with on the piano, while then doing renditions of already-excellent All Hands and Spirit. The thing about a talent such as Tim is that he's not going to play the songs exactly the same way as the album, and dating back to the Hey Rosetta! days no two sets are exactly alike, but you can be damn sure that it's going to be a touching, engaging, and entertaining show. The way that he brought the heartbreak of The Eighteenth Hole alive made you feel it in your chest, while the other kind of heartbreak with respect to the disbanding of Hey Rosetta in Don't Let Me Go Yet touched close to home. But there was joy too - Bandages has the perfect singalong and this rapt crowd was tickled to oblige. Speaking of singalongs, opener Nico seemed to be pulling some strings behind the scenes as Tim tried to make the set list up on the fly and she was roped in for a couple of songs, both as backing vocals and percussion. All of this added a lovely touch to the already cosy show. After a couple of "that should have been the finale" moments felt by both the crowd and Tim (he said so much himself) he was forced to actually close - but how? "May as well play Welcome," suggested Nico, and so he did, to everyone's delight. Early into the stripped back version he messed up the lyrics, quipping "I've played this song a thousand times - actually more than a thousand times!" but we were forgiving and overjoyed anyhow. (And told him as much during a chat afterwards while getting my record signed while he was pinned down in the corner of the pub.)