Ríoghnach Connolly & Honeyfeet + Paddy Steer / Manchester Academy 3 / Fri 5 Dec
Schedule
Fri, 05 Dec, 2025 at 07:30 pm
UTC+00:00Location
Manchester Academy | Manchester, EN
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Ríoghnach Connolly and Honeyfeet return in 2025 with Honeyfeet Presents: The Heads, Hearts and Hooves Tour, a bold and celebratory chapter in the journey of one of the most electrifying and genre-defying live acts performing today. Following a string of unforgettable performances, growing international recognition and a new body of work, the band sets out across Europe and North America, carrying their signature blend of protest soul, twisted folk, deep groove and joyful abandon.At the heart of Honeyfeet is the indomitable Ríoghnach Connolly, winner of the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Award for Best Folk Singer and BBC Radio 2’s Folk Singer of the Year. Her voice, equal parts fierce, tender and fearless, connects ancestral song traditions with contemporary storytelling. In early 2025, she joined Annie Lennox on stage at the Royal Albert Hall for Sisters: Annie Lennox and Friends, a landmark concert that raised funds for The Circle, Lennox’s global feminist organisation. Sharing the bill with artists including Celeste and Nadine Shah, Connolly brought her singular presence to a night that celebrated the transformative power of music and collective voice.
The past eighteen months have seen Honeyfeet on a steady rise. Their They Want What You’ve Got Tour featured a string of acclaimed performances, including shows at The Glasshouse in Gateshead and a headline slot at the Albert Hall in Manchester as part of WOMEX 24. Another unforgettable moment came with their performance at the cliffside Minack Theatre in Cornwall, where the band held the audience in thrall beneath the open sky as the sun dropped into the sea.
Now, with The Heads, Hearts and Hooves Tour, Honeyfeet widen their reach again. Their summer travels include appearances at Gobefest in Manchester and Plein Publique Festival in Belgium, before they journey to Canada for performances at Hillside Festival in Ontario, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and the Calgary Folk Music Festival. They continue through autumn with appearances at Wilderness, Green Man and Found Festival, concluding the year with a headline show at Manchester Academy 3.
Honeyfeet’s line-up - Lorien Garth Edwards on bass, Ellis Davies on guitar, John Ellis on keyboards, Biff Roxby on brass, and Phill Howley on drums - form a fluid and fearless musical unit. Their live sets move seamlessly between swampy jazz, raucous brass, fractured funk, blues balladry, and folkloric textures, held together by a groove and a commitment to musical freedom. Connolly’s vocals lead the charge, blending mischief, protest and vulnerability into something fiercely human and utterly live.
Their most recent album, It’s Been a While, Buddy, is a rich and expansive record that captures the band at their most expressive. It builds on the legacy of Orange Whip, which was named BBC 6 Music’s Album of the Day, while offering new textures, deeper introspection and a wider dynamic range. The next chapter begins with Glue, the first single from their upcoming body of work, set for release in autumn 2025. Lyrical, rhythmic and emotionally charged, Glue offers a glimpse of where Honeyfeet are headed next. Forward, together, and entirely on their own terms.
A Honeyfeet show is never simply a performance. It is a gathering of stories, rhythms and people. It is movement, connection, and release. With The Heads, Hearts and Hooves Tour, the band invites audiences into a space where music is both a celebration and a reckoning, a place where we listen, dance, and remember what it means to be fully alive.
Special guest is Paddy Steer. ‘It’s a sometime cartoon-like music dense with events, new textures and the colours of children’s paintings, sounds like a Swiss cuckoo clock made of egg boxes and horsehair, glued together by an African Moog player in a Vietnamese iron monger’s shop. Over 10 years I have witnessed Paddy Steer develop his alien avatar in the most dif ficult of nightclub and festival circumstances. It’s a synthesiser show that is so far away from kling klang clinicalism and the haughty air of the modular meet. On the surface it is a pound shop space program.
‘A one man Mercury capsule born of and attempting escape velocity from the derelict high street of Cash Converters, Maplins, abandoned antiques, yam, export & sari shops. People are drawn in by Paddy’s glowing pantomime. He could be a time traveller from a Victorian night garden with his gas powered calliope or a future Arkestra Brundle Fly with ten Hindu arms. He’s out of time, out of place, quantum now and out of space! Freeze one stacked second and see how many sounds and spaces are being juggled from the bearded brain in the bone case in the cardboard box with the battery watery eyes. In performance after the false starts and furniture adjustments, without fail I‘ve seen the casual listener fall into Paddy’s magic tar pit.’
This is a 14+ show. Under 16s must be accompanied by an adult.
Price: £22.50 adv
Info/tickets: https://www.heymanchester.com/rioghnach-connolly-honeyfeet-3#info
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Where is it happening?
Manchester Academy, Manchester, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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