Cambridge based country-blues & Americana band Morganway attracted a big crowd to their return to the Pentyrch, South Wales venue of Acapela Studio. This is based in a former Welsh chapel with the upstairs balcony still in its original form. The band were still pumped after performing earlier in 2026 as official artists in New Orleans at the Folk Alliance International, an arts showcase, sometimes performing as late as 2:30am in one of the convention hotels.
The band line-up was SJ Mortimer (vocals & guitar), Kieran Morgan (guitar & vocals), Nicole J Terry (fiddle & backing vocals), Ed Bullinger (drums & backing vocals) and Joe Taylor (bass) who introduced himself in Welsh.
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The band kicked off, after a mellow intro, into ‘Come Over’ which demonstrated their sonic punch with powerful gritty vocals from SJ and great multi-harmonies, with interplay between guitars, fiddle & drums giving an upbeat raw, emotional and expansive wall of sound.
As SJ said in her introduction “the band have been busy writing new songs” and this was the first of them ‘Don’t Sweat It’ a song about anxiety with its country blues feel led by Nicole on fiddle with evocative vocals from SJ with great harmonies and solid rhythm section. This was followed by one of the bands most well known and powerful songs with ‘Devil’s Canyon’ with its great heavy beat and strident vocals backed by fiddle and guitar and harmonies.
Then a song not played for a while ‘The Man’ with powerful soaring vocals from SJ, lovely fiddle from Nicole, echoey guitar from Kieran with SJ & Kieran jumping to the rhythm. Followed by ‘Frozen in our Time’ one of the band’s weather-related songs with a slower tempo with evocative vocals from SJ with great three-part harmonies from SJ, Nicole & Ed. With fiddle & guitar interplay and solid rhythm section.
Then the title track from the latest album ‘Kill the Silence’ with sultry lead vocals from SJ, echoey guitar and multi harmonies from Kieran & Ed. A powerful song with great guitar break from Kieran and a fiddle break from Nicole. The crowds encouraged by SJ to sing back the words to the band. This was followed by an Alanis Morrisette song with SJ’s low range vocals with passion before she lets rip with strident vocals backed by the band and lovely fiddle interlude. Then with a military beat we dropped into ‘London Life’ with its lovely harmonies from SJ & Nicole and strident vocals from SJ and powerful fiddle from Nicole backed by strong rhythm section.
To finish the first half, as Kieran said jokingly “to have a kip in the break” after their energetic performance, firstly thanking the sound and lights and organisers, with ‘Feels Like Letting Go’ with its heavy beat to start from Ed and more powerful strident vocals from SJ before the band gets more up-tempo and lets rip on this powerful song with fiddle & guitar interplay.
