Signs of Life has been a successful gigging band for nearly 15 years, playing for weddings, parties and celebrations of all kinds in the South West of England. Now, freed from the need to be sensible parents of school-age children, they are gigging further afield, appearing in festivals, concerts and arts venues across Europe and beyond.
The following pages will introduce you to the musicians, describe the music, the inspiration behind it and a taste of it. The band believe music has the power to inspire young and old and offer workshops and community events.
Signs of Life accompany pilot-cutters Yseult and Marie Claude from Poole to St Malo as fleet musicians
Quote from the 'Hopcott' blog
The packed pub folk music session that followed lived up to it's promise with violins, whistles, flutes, Uilleann pipes, bodhrans, mandolins, a piano accordion, a concertina and the occasional intervention of the lilting Hopcott soprano sax.
The music was fast, vigorous and loud. Genres included mainly Irish with some Shetland and Hebridean tunes.
Of particular mention were some devastatingly wonderful Eastern gypsy flavoured musical treats from some of the members of the Signs of Life folk band. Their music is the sort that rips apart musical convention and splices it together in ways beyond the imagination of mere mortals with searing tunes and songs in widely ranging languages from Romany to Yiddish to Cajun French.
Perhaps, if Totnes genuinely encapsulates all that is best in the creative and alternative Bohemian life style, Signs of Life with it's fiery and independent spirit should be nominated as it's official mascot band.
