Saltlines - The Gigspanner Big Band & Raynor Winn

Event information

Our festival finale with Bude Lit Fest Patron - Raynor Winn and The Gigspanner Big Band.
The Salt Path is Raynor Winn's Sunday Times best-selling memoir of walking the South West Coast Path in its entirety, under the weight of personal tragedy and misfortune. It has won global praise for its 'against all odds' uplifting message, and its frank exploration of the reality of homelessness.

The Salt Path is one couple's story, but such a well-trodden path must hold many more stories of loss, love and the natural world. Perhaps these stories could be found in the form of traditional songs and tunes that have been left behind and saved for us due to the diligence of song collectors such as Cecil Sharp and Sabine Baring-Gould.

This seed of an idea has developed into an exciting collaboration between Raynor Winn and The Gigspanner Big Band, a collective of some of the most high-profile names on the British folk scene.

Together, Raynor and the Gigspanner Big Band will celebrate, in traditional songs and newly written words, this "630 uninterrupted miles of coastline, crossing wild headlands with the calls of oystercatchers, and the smell of salt laden air ever present"

The Gigspanner Big Band are a unique force in British folk music...

Read these reviews and book your tickets now!
“Saltlines is beautiful...exquisite musicianship and truly soulful music, led by the radiant Raynor Winn. A must see. It's just what we need right now”
Marianne Elliott OBE Director (War Horse and The Salt Path)

"An exciting and ground-breaking collaboration. An evening unlike any other...thought provoking, lyrical, meditative, mesmerising” Mag North

“But the highlight was undoubtedly Saltlines. It played to a standing-room only house...an evocative and intense triumph” R 'n R (R2) Magazine
“A stroke of genius” Nightshift Magazine

"Saltlines picked up the South West, every last cove and headland, folded it into a van and drove it
across the land to the parched East, where they unfurled it, note by note, song by song, and I swear I
saw gulls fly"

"Saltlines last was truly off the scale. Completely carried away by the beauty, sensitivity and
pure artistic genius of the whole performance"

"Quite simply one of the most exquisite, breathtaking, hauntingly beautiful and life-affirming
performances I've ever seen"

"Powerful, thought provoking, seamless and blessed with the flow of brilliance. Libretto perfect, musicianship perfect. Quite astonishing"

"Sublime; what an evening. We were taken on a journey through sound and words which wove a kind of magic around the auditorium. Crashing waves and quiet ripples, you could almost smell the sea"

"How wonderful to read this write up after experiencing this extraordinary music and prose synergy last night at The Plough Arts Centre in Torrington. I too was in tears at the exquisite aural delights and phenomenal musicianship of all the band. I am lucky enough to be a volunteer steward at The Plough and feel so blessed that we were graced with Saltlines in our auditorium. Being just 10 miles or so from the South West Coast path here in North Devon I could virtually taste the sea through the evocation of music and Raynor's heartfelt words... Thank you, thank you, thank you all"

Recommended age: 15yrs+
Unreserved seating
Bar and pizzas available from 6pm
Bring cash for a raffle to support Bude Lit Fest