Our return to Chesham Folk Club was the second in our final half dozen gigs for the band. Portentous rainstorms had been sweeping through the local area for what seemed like days, and bad news seemed to rumble along with it. Determined though he was to make the gig, poor old Rob was stricken with discomfort and pain on the morning of the performance and, together, we took the essential decision that, given what he was suffering and the uncertainties over when medics could treat him, I would do the gig solo.
Na-Mara is very much a duo and Rob provides by far and away the majority of the finesse in our performances. So, after taking the above decision, I spent a frantic afternoon rehearsing some alternative songs to cover for our usual instrumentals.
Come 6:45pm, still concerned about Rob and somewhat distracted thinking through how I would approach the gig solo, I set off in the car for the half hour drive to Chesham.
Of course, I needn't have worried. The organisers at Chesham Folk Club were as welcoming of my doing the gig solo as they were of the duo performing. MC for the evening, Roy, quickly put me at my ease and having had chance to chat with some of the regulars at Chesham, I was made to feel much more comfortable. Meeting our old friends David and Sara Pratt again provided a further enormous fillip to my mood and confidence. David and Sara are both huge supporters of Na-Mara’s music with David having written some very positive reviews of our recordings of the years. The fact that they had travelled all the way from Kent, staying overnight nearby in order to catch our concert, certainly had me walking tall.
Chesham Folk Club has some excellent floor singers that, this night, included Peter Nutkin who’d travelled over from the Watford Folk Club. Four singers each did one song before my first set, and then I was on.
For the most part, I stayed with the prepared Na-Mara set list for our autumn ‘tour’, but I needed to make a joke and a feature of occasionally providing a vocalised break in lieu of where Rob would usually have taken the lead. It generally seemed to work. Unbeknownst to most in the audience I also occasionally eclipsed the space where Rob would usually provide a break and continued through with the verses and choruses. In this first half, I replaced one instrumental with the new arrangement that I've been working on for the Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia song Black Muddy River, paying homage to the magnificent version recorded by Norma Waterson.
The first half all went well and, after a short break with more chatting with regulars and with David and Sara, the floor singers returned for another round of songs before I took to the floor again.
Similar to the first half, I cleaved close to the usual Na-Mara second set but took the opportunity to introduce our new song, Father, Oh Father, about the abdominal misdeeds of some priests and the bishops that conspired for them to evade justice.
I'm pleased to report that, overall, the evening went very well, and the audience seemed happy to have had a good singalong. I even got calls for an encore. So, all in all, I couldn't have been happier.
Thanks to all Chesham Folk Club for the original invitation for Na-Mara to perform and for their sympathy and understanding when only half of the duo was able to turn up. Thanks also to the wonderful David and Sara Pratt for travelling so far to see us perform and for their wonderful support for our music over many years. I'm further pleased to report that, two days after the gig as I write this blog post, Rob seems to be very much on the up and we can focus on both being fit and ready for our forthcoming gig at St Edith Folk in Otford, Kent.