Former Bellowhead frontman Jo Boden is playing an intimate home town gig at Winchester's Theatre Royal on November 12.

Jon grew up in Winchester, and is a former pupil of Kingsworthy Primary, Henry Beaufort and Peter Symonds. His music teacher Vicky Finch of Henry Beaufort School said of Jon: "Jon was in year 8 when I started my teaching career at the Henry Beaufort School. Already a talented guitarist, Jon was a Music teacher’s dream; showing a refreshing interest in a much wider musical diet than the average teenager. His love of folk music soon became evident and Jon demonstrated this incredible thirst for the genre by teaching himself to play the Northumbrian pipes which he used, amongst several other instruments, in an Irish inspired composition for his GCSE exam. When he recorded the piece, he multi-tracked every instrument bar the violin; which I played. I think it’s fair to say that Jon later got to grips with the violin as well and the rest, as they say, is history”.

Jon then went on to front the award winning progressive folk eleven-piece Bellowhead, selling over a quarter of a million albums worldwide and playing sell-out shows all over the world including prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall.

Jon will be performing songs from his latest album Afterglow, his first since Bellowhead split in 2016. The follow up to 2009s ‘Songs From The Floodplain’ which led him to be crowned Folk Singer of the Year at the BBC Folk Awards. Whereas Floodplain largely dealt with the rural setting, Afterglow looks to juxtapose this and immerse the listener within a post-apocalyptic street carnival – a location of decaying buildings, burning oil drums and homemade fireworks, in which Boden tells the story of two lovers trying to find one another. Speaking about the album concept, Boden says: “Like my previous album Songs from The Floodplain, Afterglow imagines a near-future world where the luxuries and comfort of 21st century life have become scarce, and a harder, simpler existence now prevails. Afterglow is the story of a couple who are trying to find each other in the middle of a bonfire-night street carnival in a crumbling, derelict city. I had a wonderful time recording it in Sheffield with the help of my band the Remnant Kings and Andy Bell in the producer's chair.”

Tickets £22. Doors 8pm.

For more information visit http://www.theatreroyalwinchester.co.uk/jon-boden/