Hey! Manchester promotes gigs by folk, Americana and experimental bands from around the world in Manchester, England. Read more here, see below for our latest shows, check out our previous shows, contact us, or join our mailing list, above.

Upcoming shows: C Duncan... Dustin O’Halloran... Chuck Prophet... The Ocelots... Sean Rowe... Jim Ghedi... Fionn Regan... The Weather Station... Martin Kohlstedt... The Loft... Beans on Toast... Joshua Burnside... Easter... Nadia Reid... Danny & the Champions of the World... Ruth Lyon... The Delines... Helena Deland... Chris Brain... Index for Working Musik... Heather Nova... Mark Eitzel... Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band... Jeffrey Martin... Austin Stambaugh... Sounds From The Other City 2025... Federico Albanese... Amelia Coburn... Hayden Thorpe & Propellor Ensemble... Jerron Paxton... Lauren Housley & The Northern Cowboys... Sam Amidon... Throwing Muses... Shotgun Jimmie... Lael Neale... Niamh Regan... Basia Bulat... AVAWAVES... Albertine Sarges... Jamie Duffy... BC Camplight...

When: 7.30pm on Saturday 24 May 2025
Where: Hallé at St Michael’s, 36-38 George Leigh Street, Ancoats, Manchester M4 5DG

We’re excited to be welcoming Sam Amidon back – this time, to St Michael’s.

When Sam Amidon flew to Los Angeles late in the winter of 2024 to collaborate with Sam Gendel, he had a deceptively complex plan for their session: that is, he had no real plan at all. Amidon and Gendel had long been two members of a mutual admiration society. When Amidon first saw Gendel play at his now-fabled residency at the Hollywood Italian restaurant Pace years earlier, he was wowed by Gendel’s open-ended enthusiasm and stylistic vim, plus charmed by his invitation to sit in on violin, though he didn’t know much about making ‘jazz’. Gendel, too, had been an ardent fan of Amidon’s voice and flexibility since seeing him on YouTube nearly two decades ago. Gendel even joined Amidon and the great Milford Graves for the 12-minute finale of 2017’s The Following Mountain. But what, exactly, were the New England folk musician now living in England and the pedal-hopping polyglot saxophonist going to do for the better part of a week in Gendel’s Venice home, in his ad hoc dining room studio? Neither exactly knew.

Amidon offered up two ideas. First, they could simply play, pursuing whatever ideas felt good as they jammed. Or, perhaps, they could tinker with a batch of interpretations Amidon had been building, a loose set of somewhat familiar tunes — Yoko Ono’s Ask the Elephant, Lou Reed’s Big Sky, the rapturous hymn Old Churchyard, the standard English shanty Golden Willow Tree. Gendel’s eyes and imagination lit up with the latter idea, or at the chance to help Amidon in his decades-long quest to recontextualise what it means to sing a folk song or make folk music. When Amidon left Los Angeles just days later, the bulk of Salt River – his Gendel-produced debut for River Lea Recordings / Rough Trade and a radical reintroduction to the possibilities of Sam Amidon’s music – was done.

This is a 14+ show. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.

This is a co-promotion with Please Please You.

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All shows are 18+ unless otherwise stated.