Nigel Burnham: The Band Room founder, concert promoter, journalist and music critic
THE funeral of The Band Room founder Nigel Burnham will be held at St Mary’s Church, Farndale, near Kirkbymoorside, on Thursday(8/1/2026) at 1pm.
Concert promoter, journalist and music critic Nigel passed away peacefully at St Leonard’s Hospice, York, on December 1 2025, aged 74, having written typically eloquently of his cancer diagnosis.
“I’m dying of cancer,” he wrote for the March 25 edition of Daily Mail +. “If your GP dismisses your symptoms or offers you Viagra instead of a life-saving test, beware. Too many are slipping the cracks like me: Nigel Burnham.”
Nigel, of East Farndale, held his first concert in August 1995, presenting the legendary Cajun band Balfa Toujours in the moorland wood and corrugated iron shed in “the middle of nowhere”, or more precisely, the “Daffodil Valley” hamlet of Low Mill that had first served as a silver band rehearsal room.
“There was a full moon, and it was so hot and sticky, very Mardi Gras and swampy, you could almost have been in New Orleans,” he recalled in 2014. “Since then I’ve lost count of the number of times people have exited the venue and looked upwards in amazement at the black velvet skies crackling with billions of stars.”
On that September night, Nigel speculated: “Could we reasonably claim to be England’s best Dark Sky music venue?”, asking concert-goers to bring binoculars to Tiny Ruins’ show. Six years later, in December 2020, the North York Moors National Park was designated an International Dark Sky Reserve.
“Astronomy has always been a bit of a leitmotif for me,” he said of the scientific study of celestial objects, space, and the universe, but Nigel was a star gazer in more ways than one, spotting talent that would go on to shine all the more brightly after playing the 100-capacity Band Room, its white walls bathed in a comforting womb of red light.
Tim Burrows, left, Mark Ellis and Nigel Burnham: The team behind the concert programming at The Band Room
Mark Ellis, one of Nigel’s team on regular duty on gig nights, says: “Nigel had a good nose for sniffing out new artists to play The Band Room long before anyone had really heard of them, like Willy Mason, Howe Gelb, The Handsome Family, Jesca Hoop, Michael Hurley, Valerie June, and many others. Sure enough, a year later, they would pop up on Jools Holland or be playing Glastonbury.
“He had a passion for country/folk music and keeping it live; the Band Room accommodated that perfectly. His musical knowledge was encyclopaedic. In the early days before social media, we travelled all over the North East to see artists we fancied getting to play the Band Room.”
Mark, who also runs the Dry Stone Wall Maze in the heart of Dalby Forest, continues: “Nige loved to reminisce about various bands he’d seen in his youth, the Sex Pistols in Doncaster, 1977, the [Rolling] Stones in Hyde Park, 1969, and I seem to remember him talking about wanting to see The Beatles in 1963 but his Dad wouldn’t let him go because he felt he was too young. His older brother was able to tell him all about it when he got back.”
Describing The Band Room as being “like no other venue you’ll ever stumble upon”, Nigel delivered to Low Mill such acts as post-Catatonia Cerys Matthews; Vashti Bunyan, after her long hiatus from the folk scene; Richmond Fontaine; Laura Veirs; Eilen Jewell; Caitlin Rose; York singer-songwriter Benjamin Francis Leftwich; Martin and Eliza Carthy, from Robin Hood’s Bay; Ryley Walker & Danny Thompson; The Weather Station; Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo; Johnny Dowd and Hiss Golden Messenger.
The Handsome Family’s Brett and Rennie Sparks, the gothic Americana duo from Albuquerque, called The Band Room “the greatest small venue on Earth”; singer-songwriter Howe Gelb, from Tucson, Arizona, enthused, “It’s got a great vibe…and werewolves too”.
“We’ve had people fly over from Hong Kong to see a show at The Band Room,” said Nigel on the Band Room website. “A couple of guys flew in from Ohio to see The Groundhogs. And a Russian music fan showed up with his Hungarian girlfriend to see a band they had missed at Glastonbury.
“What’s so special about the venue? We think it’s because everyone’s blown away by the beauty of the location, the purity of the acoustic, the instantaneously magical atmosphere of a little wood-panelled room with no noisy bar to contend with (you bring your own drinks).”
The Handsome Family’s Brett and Rennie Sparks, who called The Band Room “the greatest small venue on Earth”
Mark says Nigel was attending gigs right up until the end of his life. “He was putting on shows at the Band Room – Steve Gunn and Sam Moss in 2025 – even when he was too poorly to see them himself.
“It was always for fun; nobody made any money out of it. It was just a group of friends [Nigel, Mark and Tim Burrows] putting on shows that they wanted to see and share. He also provided an opportunity for local artists to play their first shows, specifically Katie Lou McCabe, Charly McCabe, Nessy Williamson and Amy May Ellis.
“He was a warm, kind and humorous man, who always saw the funny side of life and would say farewell with a peace sign. Peace and love Nige, you will be missed.”
Further tributes are being gathered at https://nigelburnham.muchloved.com. One, by Susan, remembers Nigel driving his Land Rover around the field below Hillmead, held together with tinfoil and scrapped only days later. “When we lived in Leeds, Royal Park Avenue, I remember trudging up the hill to the phone box to telephone through to NME [New Musical Express] Nigel’s latest music review. (Trudging and a bit grudging on cold winter nights!),” she writes.
“I was stand-in for Emma Ruth, Nigel’s alter-ego in the music papers. Always fun, always a new adventure. His other alter-ego was Des Moines. Always funny and good with words. Unforgettable. Thank you Nigel. Rest in peace.”
Another, posted by Sandy, recalled “being drawn initially by his big red hair and flamboyant persona”. “I can picture him now at Hillmead, playing music, scoring beverages (never making tea or coffee) and warming the living room with his beautiful smile. I can’t believe he’s gone, and he will be much missed,” she writes.
Thursday’s funeral will be followed by a private cremation. Nigel will be very sadly missed by all his family and friends. Family flowers only, please, but donations if desired may be given to St Leonard’s Hospice and church funds; a plate will be provided at the service.
Farewell, Nigel, you knew how to tell’em; you knew how to pick’em; you knew how to sell’em.
Tiny Ruins in 2014
LET the final words go to Nigel Burnham, talent spotter, word weaver and chilled host, here tempting Band Room devotees to discover the joys of his latest new discovery, Tiny Ruins, in his website posting for September 5 2014.
“Tiny Ruins, by the way, is New Zealander Hollie Fullbrook. Gorgeous voice, crisp finger-picker, Hollie has spent the last three years touring the world opening for Beach House, Joanna Newsom, Fleet Foxes, The Handsome Family, Calexico and, in April and May, for Crowded House’s Neil Finn, with whom she also played,” he wrote.
“Her classy new album, Brightly Painted One on the Bella Union label, takes in folk, blues and pop, revealing similarities to Laura Marling, Karen Dalton and Sandy Denny, and heralds – oh come on, let’s get down off of the fence – the arrival of a bona-fide genius.”
