WesternAF presents Chris Acker, Rachel Baiman & Northcote at The Crescent, York
Schedule
Wed, 20 May, 2026 at 07:30 pm
UTC+01:00Location
The Crescent Community Venue | York, EN
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Road Less Travelled presentsWesternAF presents Chris Acker + Northcote + Rachel Baiman
Wednesday 20th May, 7:30pm
Tickets are £16 (+b/f) in advance and available from SeeTickets
WesternAF is taking three greats from the States across Europe this May to spread the word on
good country music and joins us in York on the 20th! A live intimate show with some of
America’s best kept secrets in country music.
Chris Acker
In a genre full of tall tales and marketable lies, Chris Acker crafts candid songs – weaving his wit
and woes into a body of work that exposes the stale plight of the American Songster to the
honest, and sometimes hilarious, light of day.
Since leaving his childhood home of Seattle, Washington, Chris Acker has called the haggard
decadence of the New Orleans Americana world his purlieu. In the tradition of Guthrie and
Prine, Chris lends a quavering voice to the half-rotten romance of the unremarkable and
unrefined. Regardless if you’re sitting by a backyard fire on a muggy Louisiana night or standing
stage-side in some far flung town, when you hear Chris Acker playing, you’re hearing the end
result of countless hours of observing the masters of the craft…and the end result of repeating
their mistakes.
Some hard-times don’t happen behind plows, they happen behind dish-pits and cash registers.
Some ramblers don’t feel the hot breath of freedom, just the smell of car exhaust and a couch
for a bed. From the folk revival through the golden age of country music, deafened by punk
shows and brass bands alike, Chris’s songwriting is a nod to the absurd yet muted brilliance that
inhabits the molded corners of the bars he patrons and cratered street he treads, paired with a
pained honesty that merits a long second look.
Northcote
Northcote is the musical project of Canadian singer-songwriter Matt Goud, known for his
heartfelt songwriting and dynamic live performances. Since launching in 2008, Northcote has
toured internationally, performing alongside artists such as The Gaslight Anthem, Frank Turner,
Hot Water Music and many more while building a loyal fanbase across North America and
Europe.
In 2026, Northcote is set to release To Cherish, a full-length album recorded at Rain City
Studios in Vancouver and produced by Jesse Gander (Japandroids, White Lung). The project
showcases an evolved sound with contributions from a talented ensemble of musicians
including Paul Rigby (Neko Case) and long-time collaborator Stephen McGillvray.
Northcote has released seven studio albums and multiple singles, steadily growing an audience
through powerful, emotionally resonant performances in intimate venues and major festivals
alike. With over 42,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and a strong social media presence,
Northcote continues to expand his reach, aiming for a sustainable international career while
contributing meaningfully to the music community.
Rachel Baiman
Common Nation of Sorrow, Baiman’s 2023 LP, was called one of “The Best Albums of the Year
(So Far)” by The Boston Globe, awarded 4 stars from American Songwriter, and deemed a
“Tremendously and remarkable record” by The Amp. On the heels of an album release year
that saw her play move than 130 shows across the globe, Baiman has made 2024 her “Year of
collaboration” with a series of A Side/B Side projects featuring some of her favorite songwriters
including Pony Bradshaw, Caroline Spence, Nicholas Jamerson, and Kaia Kater. If Common
Nation of Sorrow was a novel, this year’s releases feel more like short stories, just long enough
to make you want more.
Raised in Chicago, Baiman made her way to Nashville at 18 with the dream of being a
professional fiddle player and has since released two solo records and an EP, alongside session
and side-person work with Kacey Musgraves, Kevin Morby, and Molly Tuttle among many
others. As a songwriter, she has garnered a reputation for her specific brand of political and
personal lyricism, which Vice’s Noisey described as ‘Flipping off Authority one note at a time”.
In contrast with her previous work, (Watchouse’s Andrew Marlin produced her debut album,
Shame), Baiman was the sole producer of Common Nation of Sorrow. After recording for
twelve days in Nashville with Grammy-Award-winning engineer Sean Sullivan, Baiman
traveled to Portland, OR, where she spent two weeks mixing the record with famed engineer
and producer Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket/The Decemberists/First Aid Kit).
For her new collaborative singles, she turned to friend and indie-pop writer and producer
Clare Reynolds, known professionally as Lollies. “One thing I learned from producing my
own record is that I love producing, as long as it’s not my own parts”, she laughs. “I thought it
would be great to have another kind of collaboration included in these new songs, on the
production side.
The first In Collaboration single release, “Dominoes”, with Pony Bradshaw, was the result of
months of musical collaboration. “I’d been playing and singing in Bradshaw’s band some, and
on his upcoming record, and we’d always talked about writing something together. So this felt
like a natural progression.” The song hit 100,000 streams on Spotify in it’s first month, and
Wide Open Country called it “a gut wrenching tale that catalogs the tension between two
people acting on their worst impulses, leading to a domino effect of fallout.”
"I've been looking for a new well of inspiration, outside of myself," Rachel Baiman told Wide
Open Country in early 2024. "Every time that you work with someone you admire there's a lot of
growth that happens from being around their creative process and how they approach a song. It
brings a new energy to my own work when I can find a new perspective I hadn’t seen before”.
Road Less Travelled presents
WesternAF presents Chris Acker + Northcote + Rachel Baiman
Wednesday 20th May, 7:30pm
Tickets are £16 (+b/f) in advance and available from SeeTickets
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Where is it happening?
The Crescent Community Venue, 8 The Crescent,York, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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