THE festival season over, we can get back to seeing musicians up close and personal, as if in the living room: live music as Tim Hornsby has been promoting it in York for the best part of 25 years now.

Live music as Richard Hawley recalled it from playing Mr H's original Fibbers in 1995, urging continued support for such venues that give grassroots musicians their first breaks.

The Sheffield baritone singer with the down-to-earth Yorkshire humour and songs that send your heart into orbit is on a short tour in the north and Scotland: only Hawley, rather fewer guitars than normal, and his perennial sidekick Shez Sheridan for an acoustic set of ten songs played against a backdrop of Hawley's artwork for last year's Hollow Meadows.

Hawley enjoyed bantering with the sold-out crowd, who treated him as a Yorkshire mate down the pub, chipping in with retorts to stories often told at his own expense and in one case chucking pants on stage, prompting him to point out he's more accustomed to support tights being hurled his way these days.

Hawley cursed Brexit supporters as he played Tonight The Streets Are Ours, broke out of acoustic mode more than once with the aid of impromptu drums from Sheridan's mobile phone, and in the Fibbers quiet, his deep, deep voice caressed every dark corner.

“It’s only two old blokes and a drum machine,” he said, but hey that's why this rare night was so special, topped off by harmonica player Clive Mellor joining them in melancholia excelsis in Long Time Down.

Hawley returned for only one encore, but fittingly it was a Yorkshire one: his homage to Robin Hood's Bay folk queen Norma Waterson in the mighty Heart Of Oak.

The white rose, the thorns, Hawley's music is Yorkshire's symbol brought to life.