Noble Jacks celebrate first step back on long road to playing live

As Will Page (lead vocals, fiddle, guitar, mandolin) says: “We are really excited to be making this first step back on the long road to playing live gigs.

“We are really excited to be getting together with friends and fans to reengage on a human level again, rather than a Skype level.

“We are really excited to be singing songs that were on the album we released in March but which has lost a bit of momentum. And we are really excited to be collaborating with our local brewery.

“They have got a lovely open-air bit on their farm, a really pretty setting for boutique events, and they have even made a Noble Jacks beer for us – which is a great part of the fun of this particular gig.”

Noble Jacks – which sees Will combine with Matt Deveson (guitar) – usually play live with a full band. For their sold-out 40-capacity Heathfield gig, it will be Will and Matt offering an acoustic set – an important moment after a hugely frustrating few months.

“Lockdown was the worst timing for us really. We had just come off a really big, really epic support tour with The Dead South in February. We were riding a strong wave, and we had an album release scheduled for the end of March. It all happened so fast.

“In the world of releases, you plan a long time in advance. With the COVID situation at the end of February, we felt like it was coming, but it didn’t really feel like a genuine threat to the UK. And we had the album launch date on March 27. We had been planning a tour and the album a year in advance, and then it became apparent that it was going to be a big problem. But even within those three weeks, there were two weeks of being in limbo and just not having any concrete decisions about anything.”

And then came lockdown.

“We are a full-time touring band. The heart of Noble Jacks is touring.

“We are first and foremost a live band. Playing live is our passion. It is what we do week in, week out.

“Missing out on the fun and the experience of the album launch was bad, but we are also professional musicians.

“It is our income. It was pretty devastating.

“We decided to go ahead with the release of the album because we were so far down the line. The PR had started. We’d released a single in February.”

But now at least they can start to rebuild.

The two met six or so years ago when they were at Oxford Brookes University: “Matthew was studying English lit. He is very much the wordsmith. I was doing a degree in sports coaching. When we met, we initially got involved in some of the open mic nights in Oxford.

“We became Noble Jacks about four years ago. We released our first album three years ago, and that was the turning point for Noble Jacks.

“As a band, we are all about good times. Our sets are all about upbeat positive energy. We are all about the live experience.

“We really love the positive experience that we get through playing upbeat feel-good music and seeing people enjoy themselves when we play.

“That’s really the core of it. We exist to serve the fans.”

As for the music itself: “We have gone around the houses trying to describe our music. I play the fiddle so it is a bit folk, a bit rock.

“More recently we have really fallen into the Americana scene. We have been really embraced by that scene.

“We have found the Americana scene a really welcoming and friendly scene to be part of.”

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