Odin Dragonfly

Music & Arts Centre, Barnoldswick

15 May 2026

How much do I love Odin Dragonfly? Enough to travel half a day to a town I've never even heard of before (and apparently can't even pronounce properly) to see them, when I could see them much closer to home tomorrow night. And enough to regret not making an even longer trip to see them last night too. Because something this wonderful needs to be seen more than once.

The Music & Arts Centre suggests something grand; the reality is the basement of a tiny bar. But saying it like that doesn't do justice to how amazing the venue is. Although tiny, it has proper theatre-style seating, it feels close and intimate, and the sound is perfect. I can understand why it has such an impressive upcoming gig list, and I wish it were close enough to me to be a regular destination.

The music runs for about three hours, broken up by a couple of short intervals. Starting with thirty minutes of Angela Gordon solo, singing a set of traditional songs. It's all familiar, but she doesn't always go for the more common tunes. The Trees They Do Grow High is probably the highlight, with an arrangement I don't think I've ever heard before. It's all amazing, though, not what I was expecting when they announced she would do the opening set (it's a long time since I've heard her do a solo set, and it was nothing like this), but still a perfect set and a perfect choice of material.

Odin Dragonfly open with a heart-stopping performance of The Dimming from Sirens. Just two wordless vocals and a shruti box accompaniment and it's already the most perfect concert I've heard all... ever... and I'm not sure how I'm going to survive the night emotionally intact.

The set takes in most of Sirens and Offerings—it's kind of a 20th anniversary Offerings tour I guess (not meaning to brag but I was at the launch gig). I'm not going to give a song-by-song account, you'll just have trust me that they played almost everything I wanted, though I think they were cutting some songs out because they were talking too much. That's the nature of Odin Dragonfly gigs: you're not going to a concert, you're going for two hours of banter between Heather and Angela, punctuated by songs when they can stop laughing. They make us laugh, they make us cry (they make each other cry), and they sing the most beautiful songs you can imagine, flawlessly. (Flawless when they're not laughing or breaking nails.)

Surprisingly, no Mostly Autumn songs (I think we can count Which Wood? as an Odin Dragonfly song these days). I think I would have wished for Caught in a Fold, but I'm not complaining when there was so much else in the set. There was even a surprise when Which Wood? segued into a flute instrumental that I don't think I've ever heard before (how is this possible?)

Highlights? Too many to list. Oh, ok: Gulls. And Forsaken Love. Heather is still a better singer than Stevie Nicks. That's just an undeniable truth.

My two favourite singers in the whole world being perfect for three whole hours. Best concert I've ever seen. But you probably already figured that out.