In times past, Na-Mara have enjoyed performing at both the Colindale and the Barnet Folk Clubs in London. After the tragic early death of Barnet Folk Club organiser, JJ Dunne, in 2020, the two clubs merged to become the Colindale Barnet Folk Club. The new club, now organised by Mark Mulrooney, is based at The Bull Theatre in Barnet and usually meets on the 3rd Friday of every month.
Na-Mara were originally booked to perform at the folk club on Friday 21st June 2024. However, as the theatre had need of the folk club space that evening it was agreed that, with others, we would showcase the Colindale Barnet Folk Club at the first evening of the 2024 East Barnet Festival the following Friday, with our venue being The Big Top. Roll up roll up, i hear you say.
So, leaving our clown costumes behind, we set off on a beautiful summer evening for the short trip to East Barnet under the clearest of blue skies. It looked like a lovely evening and that is very much how it turned out to be.
After some brief fun and games actually getting the car onto the festival site, we were able to park up reasonably close to The Big Top. The festival, with its fairground attractions and it's mainstage, were in full spate as Rob, Dave and I carried our gear to the big top... And very big it was! We had ourselves a stage and about 100 seats already set up and, for the second night running, the luxury of a terrific PA system manned by sound techs who really knew what they were doing.
Delayed a little bit getting onto the site, our sound check needed to be done quickly and efficiently so that the floor singers who were doing the first of what was to be a two-hour concert could have the same care afforded to their sound as was given to us.
In the dark of The Big Top, lit by stage lights only, the club singers from Colindale Barnet Folk Club, supplemented with singers from the mighty Bowes Park Folk Club, provided a very pleasant hour of traditional classics and self-penned songs. Well done to Jo Swinhoe, Mark Mulrooney, Ian Roland and others for their excellent contributions.
Our own one-hour set went down very well. With the spotlights shining from behind the audience and the distance between the audience and stage, it wasn't easy to gauge how engaged the audience were. However, we could see plenty of toes tapping and heads nodding and the feedback at the end of the show from fellow performers and audience members was very upbeat and positive.
The Big Top was emptied of audience and sound text by the time we'd said our goodbyes and packed up our gear. However, there were no holdups getting off the festival site or on the way home and, finishing at 9:00 PM, I for one was home in plenty of time for a glass of beer in the cool of a summer's evening in the garden before turning in for the night.
Many thanks to Mark Mulrooney of Colindale Barnet folk club and Johnny Siddall of The Bull Theatre for the invitation to perform in The Big Top at the East Barnet Festival and similar thanks to all those who came along to listen through the evening.