Mark Chadwick

This program presents two live performances by British band the Levellers. First is a complete show featuring 23 songs, including hits "One Way" and "15 Years." Next are highlights from an acoustic set at the Buxton Opera House, with special guests Maddy Prior, Nick Burbridge, Rev Hammer and Nick Harper. The Levellers infuse their music with punk and traditional English styles to create their own brand of anarcho-activist rock.

Borne out of the anarcho-squatting free-festival scene of the eighties the Levellers have survived over 25 years of music press vitriol, drink and drug addictions as well as many barren years in the wilderness. But the band had seven consecutive gold albums throughout the 90s, sold out their own festival for the last ten years and run their own creative centre, the Metway. Via the eccentric artist, archivist, whiskey loving bassist Jeremy Cunningham we are taken on a journey; how the band rose to fame and how they survived. A potted history of 25 years of subsidised dysfunctionalism. An uplifting tale of battling demons, that reminds us that behind every band there is always a story of struggle for expression, acceptance and survival.

Levellers’ third album of collaborations with fellow Brighton band, The Moulettes, “Collective / Live” was recorded at London’s iconic Hackney Empire. This live album and film feature radical reworkings of their back catalogue including Battle Of The Beanfield, England My Home and Hope Street, along with more recent songs Down By The River ‘O’, Man O’ War and The Cholera Well. With multiple cameras positioned onstage, creating a truly privileged vantage point, the spirit of the Levellers has been captured as never seen before.