aka Ten nights in Sidmouth and Five nights in Shrewsbury.
Well, this is all a bit late, but the end of the festival season brings other priorities, like ensuring the gazebo is bone dry before winter storage, and scrubbing from windbreaks the red mud of Devon, Shropshire and Herefordshire.
The first return to festivalling came with Ely Folk Festival in mid July. Cannily, the organisers had planned for the eventuality of lockdown not easing quite at the pace hoped, so when it came to pass that full easing was delayed, while others fell by the wayside, Ely was able to go ahead with remaining restrictions. All stages were open air. There were yellow rectangles suitably spaced, in which bubbles could sit; a bird’s eye view must have looked rather like a Zoom conference with everyone talking at the same time. No question, for most, this was their first live music in 16 months and that was joyous, though more so was just meeting people, unplanned, unexpectedly, spontaneously. But dancing was still off the menu, and despite best efforts, little transpired of informal singing sessions.
Sidmouth did not pitch itself as the actual festival, instead dubbing a collection of events as A Celebration of the Sidmouth Folk Festival, with festival tickets rolled forward for yet another year. By day, there were low key, free gigs with encouraged voluntary contributions. The paying events were a week of evening gigs, captained by safe hands and crowd pleasers. Doubtless, this was the right approach for bringing money into the festival and ensuring its survival to the full fat version in 2022. I was selective, picking Eliza Carthy, Jackie Oates & John Spiers and Banter. Lovely and engaging as they all were, this wasn’t why I will always make my stately Landrover Defender progress from North West to South West each year. The town just couldn’t buzz with anticipation and festivity, the way it usually does. Also, for me, there just wasn’t the breadth of offering – the individual album launches, the quirkier acts; in particular, safe programming left out the English instrumental raptures in which I will happily wallow.
That said, I reckon I could be happy camping in this gorgeous corner of countryside / seaside for ten days, regardless of what played out. Every year, I look forward to unpressured time sitting under my gazebo, looking at those rolling hills, while I learn songs. I fall for this every year; it never happens; it didn’t happen this year. Belief in this was my fallback, that it would be a week and a half well spent. But the greater hope, the faith that I kept, was that, at the last minute, the spirit of the festival would out, and all would be worthwhile. It may be hard for me to convey the trepidation of turning up at the regular pub on the first day, wondering whether there would be critical mass for the best singing in the land. It seems we had all kept that same faith, some travelling from Scotland. This was going to happen. Joy! Just having that lunchtime session for the week was enough. But unsurprisingly, the informality of the singing and music sessions were the things best able to flourish outside the formal structure of the festival, so there was more. And we sang; we chorused; we belly laughed; we harmonised; we remembered those we had lost; and we kept singing.
Don’t suppose there was a torchlit procession along the beach at the close?
No, though I believe that the event that gets cancelled each year, still got cancelled.
Those beach perambulations are amongst my fondest and haziest memories of Sidmouth.
The event that got cancelled again.
How was Shrewsbury though?
In true Retro style, that instalment is yet to come.
Consider my breath bated.
What did you think of Banter? How does the drummer act out the multi-instrumentalist aspect live?
And weren’t you going to Bromyard too?
I considered the Whitby Musicport as a end of season closer, but the town is fully booked, so have booked Skye Live for May next year instead. That and a return to Wickham.
I like Banter, though they’re a band to dance to, rather than a gig like the Sidmouth one. Their new album has more songs on and I don’t think they’re quite strong enough as a sit-down-and-listen band. They did a dance at Bromyard and that was ace. And Tim really does play the trumpet while still drumming.
Personally I’m conflicted about going to see Kathryn Tickell next week – it would be our first gig in a big scary concert hall for oh, two years or so. Should we risk it? Will she be able to ramble on between songs while wearing a mask? Will the crush at the St Georges bar at half time be a superspreader event?
We’ve also got tickets to see Lau in Feb of next year – It’s been two years since I bought them. Will Boris let us go to that?
Whatever happens with those two, I’m deffo going to be Singing With Nightingales next year – bought my ‘early bird’ ticket a few days back, or rather I should say that I used my ticket a few days back – I actually stumped the cash a long time back along the way, but things got kicked down the road, as they have.
I’m guessing that, in your part of the world, you are doing the actual, walking round in the dark Singing with Nightingales. I envy you. We had to get them livecammed up to the frozen north! However, I am seeing Sam Lee as part of Manchester Folk Festival next month, which is always a pleasure. Kathryn Tickell is also playing that, but my conflict is that I already have tickets for Jesca Hoop, who I see less often.
What I am saying is, Go see Kathryn. If not, work out what your threshold is that has to be crossed before you allow yourself out. The risk is that, otherwise, you may never allow yourself again.
The live cam was great to listen to as I lay in bed with the headphones on.
When more mobile I did a dawn chorus walk round Paxton Pits in Cambridgeshire listening to the nightingales.
I’ve been to a few pub gigs since the end of July and people are mostly not masking-up for them, it seems. Dunno about concert hall gigs lately as I’ve not been to any since early July when distanced seating and mask-wearing except when seated was enforced.
There’s a risk in it, especially if you’re immuno-compromised or have an underlying respiratory condition. If either of those applied to me I’d not go to any gigs, as the pandemic is definitely not yet over.
I steer clear of crowded places and places where idiots congregate, I’m double-vaxxed and I self-test (Lateral Flow) twice a week. I also submit a monthly finger-prick blood sample. If I get it, I want to know as soon as possible.
So far so good I’ve not had a positive test or any symptoms, right from the start of it all.
In my book, the beating heart of English folk music is bicameral. There is the Bedford Hotel on the front at Sidmouth, where the musicians will gather having knocked off the day job on stage. Bands have been formed there, tune sets coalesced against the ambience of ordering at the bar. A couple of years ago, poking my head round the door, I clocked that one room had enough musicians bowing and squeezing away for a Bellowhead reunion. Then there is the Berwick Pavilion on the West Midlands showgrounds – a big scruffy wooden shack, with tide marks showing from the last time the Severn flooded, but a wooden shack with a cracking bar and charged with folkies just gagging to make a bloody great noise.
Shrewsbury took the plunge and went (almost) full festival. Normally covered audiences were replaced by open stages, Cropredy-style. Unlike Retro’s Wickham experience, there was not a drop of rain all weekend; but I do hope that the festival doesn’t build false confidence on one weekend’s weather; I hope to be back under cover next year. The geography of the two big stages contrasted, with the main being at the top of a shallow slope, punters straining in their camping chairs to see the band; Skylark stage was below its audience and worked so much better. As a result I shunned the big names (Show of Hands, Kate Rusby, Seth Lakeman, Young ‘uns) on Cuckoo, as there was more than enough for me elsewhere. It may irk the fabulous bloke musicians who had already built Dervish into a world touring force, but the arrival of frontwoman Cathy Jordan transformed them. That woman can sing! They closed the opening night with promise for the rest of the weekend. I cannot have been the only one warily approaching the John Martyn Project – half a dozen Bristol based musicians with a shared love, who came together for a project but enjoyed themselves too much to part company. Well they are fabulous and reminded this semi-detached fan just how much of the man’s music I know and love. ‘fraid you’ve probably missed your chance to see this incarnation, but they are thinking of moving on to the music of other artists or specific years; in the bar, I was encouraging them in their thoughts for the Joni Mitchell Project.
Exemplary stuff. The occasional sound of distant geese is about all it’s missing!
All sounds good. My mates who went to Shrewsbury were very taken with Band of Burns. Did you see them?
Ah no. Main stage, you see? Also, I specifically wanted to see the competition on the other stage, which was James Yorkston. This was a mistake. I really didn’t think he had much to say for himself, or any of us, for that matter.
Shrewsbury usually clashes with Towersey, another longstanding fixture in the folk calendar, but one that has shifted, consciously no doubt, away from roots towards the mainstream, to the extent that I wonder whether they are pitching to be Cropredy when the members of Fairport inevitably call it a day. With the plug pulled on their regular August Bank Holiday fixture, there were plenty of Towersey refugees made the journey to Shropshire; I suspect that a huge number will make the switch permanent.
Shrewsbury’s line was that, what with travel restrictions and uncertainties, they would source their typical international flavour closer to home, with UK-based musicians. I must admit, Seckou Keita’s quartet were too rocky to be transcendent, in the way that his solo kora material is. Sheema Mukherjee too, came with a band, though here the sitar riffing felt more embedded in the groove. AfroCelt closed the festival with reliable panache and an unrelenting drive, a drive that has sustained the band over 25 years and shows no sign of abating. But the outstanding show for me was Will Pound’s ‘A Day Will Come’, a bittersweet tour round the dance tunes of the EU. Unsurprising that this would hit the bull’s eye for this lover of French dance, but I was caught out by the emotional punch of it too.
Elsewhere, there was dancing! Outdoors, on grass, the adverse effects of which will keep my physio occupied for a few more sessions. But who cares? This was the first dancing for most of us since you know when and I was grinning like a … well, there is a reason I go under this name. Honestly, it was euphoric. My smiling muscles were feeling the strain, it was so good to be with others moving through air to a crack ceilidh band. The blurb said that callers were skilled at dances which would enable people to stay in their bubbles, but the dancers had self-selected and were clearly from the less cautious wing of the folk world (and there are plenty who have still barely left the house). One major step(hop) taken out of lockdown.
And so to the Berwick, after hours, when the programmed gigs have closed. At one end, a musicians’ session, chairs arranged in concentric circles, those in the outer galaxies hanging on for life to the tails of the inner circle as the tunes swirl. And at the heart, the modest, unassuming, unlikely front man Will Pound is in his happy place, driving all forward. I love that slightly off key session sound – scuzzy, unofficial, great associations – but the thing about the sessions at Shrewsbury and Bromyard is that they are tight and actually in tune; it’s beautiful music in its own right that I can just kick back and listen to. But no, there is work to be done. For at the other end of the Pavilion, singers are gathering for choruses and the big fellah in the kilt has responsibilities. I can say with some pride that, at one point, I was competing with the bagpiper from AfroCelt; not only did I acquit myself, but I kept my key. For this is my happy place; David Attenborough could do a documentary and discuss how he has found this creature in its natural habitat.
Just to know that these two institutions – the Bedford and the Berwick – had weathered the storm was enough to reassure me that my English folk festival summer had survived. English folk’s beating heart is in fine fettle. We kept the flame alive.
That Will Pound show is rather good, innit. As is the cd.