White Sail / Odin Dragonfly

Micklegate Social, York

24 May 2026

There's a lot of music crammed into this night: four acts in a four-hour concert, and it's miraculous that they manage it without any obvious hitches. Even more miraculous is that they manage to do it on the Micklegate Social's tiny stage, and the sound guy manages to balance 40 different instruments across four bands flawlessly.

The gig is in aid of the Julia's Hospice charity, and the sold-out audience (the venue's eccentric seating makes it hard to count; maybe about 50 of us) apparently raises a couple of thousand pounds for it.

So apart from some worthy fundraising, what do we get from the evening's music?

First on is Angela Gordon, who gets 25 minutes to play the same set of traditional songs she's played the last couple of times. By cutting most of the chat between songs, I think she fits the full set in, and needless to say it's all perfect. Her arrangement of The Trees They Do Grow High still moves me to tears. Even with no new surprises, it's a set I would happily hear again and again.

With barely any time wasted, Heather Findlay takes the stage next for a 25-minute solo set ... and completely subverts my expecations by not playing anything from any of her albums. Instead there are a bunch of new songs played with a variety of instruments: singing bowls, chimes, drums, drone, unaccompanied, and even a guitar on one of them!

I've heard all of it before at previous gigs (having said that, one was very unfamiliar), but it's still surprising that she's not relying on any of the expected favourites.

No, it's actually not surprising. After 103 gigs, I am no longer surprised by Heather doing something unexpected. It's Heather. She can do anything.

After a pretty short break, the band I came to see takes the stage: Odin Dragonfly. (Sorry, White Sail.) They get around 50 minutes to cram as much of their two-hour touring set in as they can. They tell me they'll do it by cutting out the natter between songs, which obviously I don't believe, but they're actually pretty disciplined about it. They don't play the full set from last week but they've trimmed it to the absolute best of the best. Everything I listed as a highlight in my previous reviews is included, so I am more than happy. And everything sounds as perfect as always (perhaps even technically better that usual, because they're not making each other laugh all the time).

I don't know what else to say. I'm kind of sad that the mini tour is over and there's nothing else on the horizon, but I've been privileged enough to see my favourite band three times in a week, so I can't be really sad.

There's a slightly longer interval to change over to White Sail, and so many instruments start to pile onto the tiny stage that it's a miracle they all fit. (In fact, some do fall off, and one drum only makes it through a song because an audience member holds it up.)

So I've admitted that Odin Dragonfly were the draw to get me here, but White Sail are a band I've seen three times before in York, and would happily have come down again just for them. They're an amazing group: three vocalists, multi-instrumentalists, and song writers. The 90(ish)-minute set opens with The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood (which I've always assumed was traditional, but maybe Fairport actually wrote it?), and that sets the scene for the following set, which is almost all their own material: beautifully melodic, folk-tinged tales of the natural world with a specifically English mysticism about them. Using their voices in different combinations and multiple instruments in infinite combinations, every song has a different flavour, and everything sounds just beautiful. The set ends on a dramatic note with the astonishing Holloway, with each member of the band putting down their instrument in turn and picking up a drum, for an extended three-person polyrythmic drum break. How much more prog can you get?

After their main set, Heather and Angela join them on stage (I'd deduced this, because why else would you leave the piano there when you're struggling for space?) for a couple of extra songs. The first is Rhiannon, and to be honest it feels a little under-rehearsed, but that's probably what true encores should be, right? And despite being a little ragged, it's an awesome arrangement, with each singer taking one verse and everybody harmonising on the refrain. I assume that's it, because it doesn't seem possible to top it, but then they do Meet on the Ledge, with the entire audience singing, and that's it, I'm finished, it's too much emotional overload. Nothing should be allowed to feel this good.

It was

Do I really need to say it?