"I'M sorry about that, we sometimes get carried away during the interval chatting to people and we forget to come back on," jokes one of the band.

The small but charming Frazer Theatre may be packed with friends and family, as well as devoted fans, but the resolutely down to earth Waking the Witch are as lacking in airs and graces as ever, farewell gig or no farewell gig.

Not that there's anything casual about the delivery of songs from the three classic albums which have won them acclaim up and down the land since this partly Harrogate-based acoustic outfit first came together in 2003, though sadly that all-important record company contract has somehow eluded them.

This versatile and likeable band may be made up of four very different women in terms of music and temperament but one thing has always united them – sheer talent, well that and a preference for jeans.

In the moment of their going, you suddenly realise Rachel Goodwin, Patsy Matheson, Becky Mills and Jools Parker are/were good enough to be anything they wanted.

Here's just a few of the acts they remind me of tonight: Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Simon & Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Vashti Bunyan, Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton, John Martyn, Jake Thackeray, Clannad, Kate Bush, Kate Rusby, Seth Lakeman, KT Tunstall, a bit of world music, the list is endless.

Not that this Yorkshire supergroup ever sound in thrall to their influences; these are not easily influenced women, the one thing they definitely are is themselves.

Each may take their turn in the spotlight, Jools may come across more intensely than the light-hearted (but heavily-pregnant) Becky, the red-haired Rachel more focussed than the quixotic Patsy, but the sound is always one sound.

The band's impressive grasp of folk, pop and rock in all its differing aspects is held together by three things:

1. the high quality and unashamed honesty of their songwriting.

2. their command of a variety of instruments asides from acoustic guitar – bongos, mandolin, slide guitar, mouth harp, rain stick (!)

3. gorgeous lashings of lush four-part harmonies which bring out deep swells of emotion in everything they do.

Although the first half has seen them play songs mainly from their final album, the award-winning Boys From The Abbattoir, the second brings a wider range of tracks from debut Like Everybody and its follow-up Hands & Bridges.

Whether being political or pastoral, urban or rural, tough or tender, the girls belt out every song out like their lives depended on it with both brains and heart.

The contrast between the complete confidence the band have while playing and the jokey unease they show on stage between songs goes part of the way to explaining their failure to appeal to a record industry obsessed with presentation and formats rather than the promotion of great music.