Steve Knightley and Jenna Witts: Papplewick Village Hall.

If one of our top current song-writers turns up at your local village hall it seems churlish not to be there, so, thanks to Farnsfield Acoustic for making it happen.

He gave a compelling performance to a packed and appreciative house and if he has a swagger that sometimes borders on arrogance it's perhaps because he has much to swagger about. With a sound system that was close to perfect his performance was a tour de force from beginning to end. Much better too, to involve Jenna Witts in the show throughout rather than have an opening act before the interval with the "star" arriving later. That device worked well for audience and performer.

His best known songs all put in an appearance. "Country Life" retains its freshness and the fable of "The Galway Farmer" has become something of a folk standard. The magnificent "Roots" was saved for an encore which included a clever, not to say, theatrical rendering of a song based on "Widecombe Fair", led by Jenna and accompanied by Mr Knightley who joined the performance from the back of the hall at first lending vocal echoes to Jenna's performance before re-joining her on stage for the final verses.

He was not slow to remind us that he had bagged a folk award or two, most recently for his song "Arrogance Ignorance and Greed." This is a splendid and timely rant about the bonus culture that infects the banking industry and to which we have all contributed, but let me here offer a potentially dissenting note. Although it captures something very important about the current social climate it isn't really that good a song when set against the rest of his canon. Songs like "Cousin Jack" outgun "AIG" by a mile. But the song of the night for me was "Poppy Day" a song that links fighting in Afghanistan with the trade in heroin on the streets if our towns and villages. "Poppy Day" is a superb piece of work.

This is the best night I've ever had in Papplewick; this probably sounds like damning with faint praise so let me be clear, this was a great night. Jenna worked well in a supporting role with her keyboard and vocal skills complementing SK admirably, creating a very full sound. As for Jenna, there is certainly a talent there but for me the jury is still out on how strong a solo artist she will become. No doubting Steve Knightley's status though. He is a modern great.