Rehearsals were over, the packing was done and it was time to set off for our first experience of the wonderful Shrewsbury Folk Festival. The weather was fine, the roads were kind and we made it easily to a service station near Telford for lunch.
Suitably refreshed, after lunch we drove the last few miles to the festival site which was already busy by the time we arrived.
Despite the tragic loss of one of its main architects and organisers, Alan Surtees, earlier in the summer, the professionalism and organisation behind the Shrewsbury Folk Festival was manifest immediately we arrived and superbly maintained throughout our time there. Communication with artists ahead of the festival, the sorting out of accommodation for artists and the processing of artists arriving on site were all carried out efficiently and effectively.
In our case, we parked up quickly near Artists’ Reception, got our festival wristbands sorted out and then went to have a look around the festival site and, in particular, the two stages we were due to play later in the day.
Almost seconds after we had cast our eyes over the lovely Purity Village Stage - where we would later be honoured with striking the very first notes and chords of the entire festival – we bumped into two of our closest friends. Karen and Phil had travelled up to Shrewsbury from just north of Wolverhampton to come and sample the festival atmosphere and to give us some support. They were both on fine form, were impressed with all the facilities on the festival site and were keen for the music to begin.
After viewing and talking to some of the stage managers in the Sabrina Marquee we then went off to put some of our CDs in the relevant shop outlet on site. How pleasing then to overhear, as Rob was engaged with the shop owner, a festival-goer asking to buy one of our CDs before we had even played a note. So, with a little spring in our step, we headed back to the car to pick up our bags and walk the short distance to the city centre to check into the house where we were being put up for the next two nights.
We walked alongside the beautiful River Severn, up past The Bird in Hand pub where we were due to pay the following day and in to central Shrewsbury.
We really couldn’t have asked for better accommodation than the festival organisers had arranged for us. Two hugely community-oriented individuals, Peter and Geoff, had very kindly agreed to put us up in their beautiful house by the river. When we arrived, Geoff was there to meet us and, after he showed us our rooms and relevant facilities, we all had afternoon tea in the garden watching dozens of small birds feasting on the bird feeder. Our rooms were private and beautifully furnished and, as we were to discover, our hosts were the very personification of kindness for the whole weekend.
Fully settled and refreshed, we then headed back to the festival site to get ready.......to kick the festival off. We collected the gear from the car and made our way to the Purity Village Stage, an covered stage in the centre of a large open space around which many craft vendors set up their stalls. Seating was laid out in the open air around the stage for 350-400 people and, by the time we got to the stage, sound technician Izzi was already hard at work putting the final touches to the p.a. system. We met MC for the session, Neville Street, and chatted a while with him; we were going on first, to be followed by two more acts before the main stages on site struck up for the evening.
As 5.00pm approached, increasing numbers of festival goers started to take up the seating. Many had arrived through the afternoon and were by now ready to hear some music. By the time we started, nearly all the seats were occupied and there was a decent crowd standing to the rear and the sides of the seating area. It was very encouraging to see a number of our friends in the audience.
To commence proceedings, Neville paid a fitting tribute to Alan Surtees - one of many over the weekend - before introducing us to the audience. Encouraged by the excellent sound Izzi had set up for us, we provided a pretty upbeat and varied 45-minute set to get festival proceedings going and I’m pleased to say that, from comments we received immediately after the set and from people speaking to us over the course of the following couple of days, the audience appreciated what we did.
It was really lovely to speak with so many of our friends once we had come off stage. Karen and Phil came and chatted briefly as did Robin Mansfield and Marion and Andy Treby from Cambridge Folk Club, Ruthie Bramley from Ely Folk Club, Christine Connelley from the (sadly now defunct) Herga Folk Club, Rose Jenkins who had organised a gig for us in Yarpole in May and some audience members of who had seen us at the Bracknell Folk Club earlier in the summer.
Our next performance was not until 10.30pm when we were due to finish the evening in the impressive Sabrina Marquee. So, we took the opportunity to go and grab some of the food laid on in the Artists’ Reception area. I won’t namedrop because I’m bound to forget someone but suffice it to say there were a lot of famous folk faces in the canteen tent tucking into the same excellent meat and vegetable curries that Rob and I were enjoying.
By this time the larger stages were coming to life and after listening to Joe Broughton’s marvellous Conservatoire Folk Ensemble warming up while we were eating, we were very interested to then go and spend an hour listening to local early music ensemble K’antu playing music from a splendid new music project called ‘The Sky Begins to Change’ which they have been developing with the residents of old people’s home in Shropshire and other counties. We then took the chance to have half an hour listening to the stunning Sarah Jarosz.
It was then time for us to make our way over to the Sabrina Marquee for our own evening performance. Having a nice backstage ‘green-room’ area makes it so much easier to get tuned up and settled for a big festival stage. As we did so, we listened to the excellent guitar work of local musician Chris Quinn. From the deserved applause, it was clear that there was a sizeable audience out in the Sabrina Marquee.
The technicians did a great job ‘front-of-house’ and on the monitors to create a great sound for us – thank you Matt, IZZI and Chris. The stage management was very efficiently run by Tony and we were physically set up on stage quickly and consummate MC Bob Bignell, well known from Bromsgrove Folk Club, did a great job introducing us ....and we were on.
Although it is never easy to see much past Row 3 when the glare of the stage lights is fully upon you, we could tell from the applause, the responses to jokes, etcetera, that there was a healthy audience present for us in the Marquee. This was doubly pleasing given that the Oysterband and Ragged Union were both on other stages at the same time. Again, I believe we played a good 60 minute set and the response from the audience, both at the time and in comments after the show, was very enthusiastic.
So, we came off stage around 11.30pm, packed up our gear and, to the strains of the Oysterband, made our way across the festival site to the car and then on through an impressively lively Shrewsbury town centre to our accommodation. It had been a very long day but a hugely satisfying one. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the excitement had been such that, despite the lateness of the hour and the comfortableness of the bed, (for me at least) it took quite some time for the adrenalin to dissipate and for sleep to arrive. On to Day 2...
Saturday 26th February 2017
After a somewhat fitful night’s sleep for me at least, Rob and I were treated to a lovely breakfast by Peter and Geoff before setting off back to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival site on Saturday morning. Once there, we checked on CD sales (which were very decent) and had a coffee before getting our gear together and walking the ten minutes off site to the Bird in Hand pub where we were to begin the lunchtime programme at midday.
We arrived in good time in the lounge bar of The Bird in Hand which was reasonably intimate in size and had the familiar air of a folk club about it. There were a few people already there when we arrived but numbers quickly swelled and by the time we started the room was virtually full. As people met up with old friends, the atmosphere in the room was warm.
We were introduced to the audience by MC Derek Droscher who, with his wife Mary, will be well known to all those familiar with the famous Banbury Folk Club and Festival.
Despite the early hour, it wasn’t long before the audience were picking up the choruses and singing along with gusto. By the time we had finished, it was pretty much standing room only and we were more than happy to give an encore before ceding the floor to Jamie Huddleston who was coming on after us.
Having finished and chatted with a few audience members, we then left the pub (and what looked like an excellent selection of beers - which we don’t drink before performing) to head back to the festival site. It was nearly nine hours until our next listed performance, so we had plenty of time to go for lunch on site, do some admin and see some great music. We had also been invited by BBC Radio Shropshire’s Folk Programme organiser, Genevieve Tudor, to perform a live internet session for her from her radio yurt just near the main stage area.
So, after an excellent and spicy chilli con carne for lunch, we headed to Artists’ Reception for a cuppa. While there, we took the opportunity to complete our PRS forms. By this time, the first performance of a revival of Peter Bellamy’s Folk Opera, ‘The Transports’, featuring the cream of the modern English folk scene, was starting up on the festival main stage in the Bellstone Marquee. This performance, over the course of nearly three hours with a break, was deservedly cheered to the rafters by the huge audience packed into the Marquee.
Indeed, such was the applause, there was little point trying to do a live internet recording in Genevieve’s neighbouring canvas yurt. So, after the show was finished we made our way to the yurt and, along with a nice chat with Genevieve, performed first our new song ‘Sisters and Brothers’ and, second, our translation of a Wallonian folk song which we have called ‘If I had but one true love’. I have looked for the broadcast since the event but have not yet been able to find it. I guess it might just have gone out into the ether and that was that but, on the basis that Rob and I felt we’d given good renditions of both songs, if I find it I’ll publish it on Facebook for others to View.
Having completed the broadcast, we had a modest evening meal back at Artists’ Reception and then made our way, first, to see our near neighbours and fellow performers at Cambridge Folk Festival Club Tent, The Boxwood Chessmen. As at Cambridge, Brian Causton, Penny McLaren Walker and their colleagues were excellent and provided a well appreciated set on the Purity Village Stage.
After that, we made our way across to the Sabrina Marquee to watch John Kirkpatrick and then Greg Russell play.
As we entered the Sabrina Marquee it became immediately obvious that John Kirkpatrick was performing to a very full house, acoustically. This turned out to be as a result of an electrical fault that had affected part of the site. What a trouper he turned out to be! Even without the aid of a p.a. system, John Kirkpatrick was still able to hold a very sizeable audience in the palm of his hand in a major auditorium for a good 25 minutes solely through his wit and virtuosity, until the problem was eventually resolved.
John was followed by newly emergent young folk star, Greg Russell who proceeded to deliver a punchy 45 minute solo set punctuated by some excellent repartee and interaction with an audience that clearly (and rightly) loved him. It was great to finally see him in action and we very much enjoyed our brief interaction with him back stage later that evening.
We then wandered back to the car to pick up our gear and return for our next stint at the Sabrina Marquee where we were closing proceedings there for the second night running. Again we changed, tuned up and got ourselves ready backstage, listening to the joyous thrilling music of TwoManTing. The weather through the Saturday had been glorious, with no cloud cover. As such, the hot day was being followed by a distinctly chilly night. As such, in my case my show shirt was covered by a comfy cardy until it was time to go on.
Bob Bignell was again MC and we thank him for his kind words when introducing us to the audience. Given we had finished the evening in the same tent the previous night and were worried that any audience members who’d been there the night before might think we were going to perform the same set, we consciously changed the set pretty dramatically. Again, up against two mighty competing attractions like Eric Bibb and Cara, we were very pleased that retained a healthy sized audience for our 60-minute set.
As we peered through the spotlight glare, we could see some good friends from Baldock Folk Club in the front row which was nice and, after the show, we had some lovely feedback from people coming up to the front of the stage to speak to us. It was nice to be told that “you are our ‘let’s pop in here and see what’s happy, blimey that was good’ act of the festival” by one and to be complimented on contributing to keeping the social commentary aspect of folk music alive, by another.
By the time we’d gathered up the gear and slipped back outside the marquee a heavy dew had formed on the grass outside; it was going to be a frosty night. Feeling very satisfied with four good performances over two pretty full days, we were determined to find a pint somewhere. As we left the site to return to our accommodation, we could hear sounds coming from inside The Bird in Hand pub – so we quickly popped in for an excellent pint of local delicacy, Butty Bach, which went down a complete treat. A great find at quarter past midnight...
Relaxed, fatigued and with the benefit of a little beer, Saturday night, proved to be a much better night’s sleep for me at least.
The next morning we were treated to a memorable full English breakfast and some really stimulating chat with Peter and Geoff. As we said our thanks and goodbyes to our hosts and made our way back to the festival site to head for home, we were engaged in conversation on the way five or six times by festival goers saying how much they had enjoyed the various sets we had performed. Knowing that we had really engaged with audience members certainly put a spring in our step that morning.
After saying our brief goodbyes to the staff in the Artists’ Reception area, we ‘fired up the Quattro’ as the saying goes, and headed for home. Apart from the deep mysteries of how one actually gets from the M54 to the M6 Toll, the roads (including the M6 proper – as we missed the Toll) proved fine and we were home in time for Sunday lunch.... and, in my case, a cold beer.
Very many thanks to Sandra Surtees for the invitation to perform at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival. It is a great, friendly, festival of music held on a lovely spacious site where the people seemed almost universally friendly and everything appears to be run efficiently and effectively. Similarly, many thanks again to Genevieve Tudor for propelling our music across the airwaves. Thanks to Neville, Derek and Bob for their excellent MC-ing and to all of the sound technicians that did such a great job ‘front-of-house’ and on the monitors for us. Finally, very many thanks to the very best of hosts, Peter and Geoff. If we are ever lucky enough to be invited back to the lovely Shrewsbury Folk Festival, we will make a special plea to take pleasure in your hospitality again.