We had the pleasure of spending a lovely evening yesterday in the company of a welcoming audience and three very friendly and talented young musicians in the form of headliners, Jaywalkers.
na-mara had last performed at Dunton Folk at a Christmas-themed event back in December 2013 when supporting the hugely entertaining Blast from the Past. On that dark December evening it hadn’t been quite so easy to see what a pretty setting Dunton Folk takes place in. This time St Mary Magdalene Church in the pretty village of Dunton looked resplendent bathed in late evening sunshine.
We managed to arrive around 6.45pm, just in time to catch the very end of the Jaywalkers’ sound check; there was clearly a great night ahead of us. The seemingly indefatigable Simon Bailes, club organiser and co-editor of Unicorn magazine (as well as a dozen other things besides) was already hard at work on the sound system. As the Jaywalkers went off to grab some food, Simon quickly sorted us out sound wise leaving us a little time to catch up on each other’s news. Set in the nave of the church, the acoustic at Dunton Folk offers a fine natural reverb and it was a pleasure to be back playing there again.
The show started promptly at 8.00pm and we provided a 30-minute sampler of the various themes within our music with a couple of our French translations, a couple of our own songs plus some Galician dance tunes. Encouragingly from the stage, we could see feet tapping and heads nodding in the pews and during a subsequent break in the Jaywalkers set, we struck up a number of pleasant conversations with audience members interested in the stories being told in our songs.
Jaywalkers then came on and showed why it is no wonder they are making such great strides with their music. Accompanied by virtuoso mandolin, fiddle and double base, with great vocals and harmonies, they played a range of tune styles, traditional songs plus some of their own compositions. Off stage they showed themselves to be very friendly and approachable. They were happy to chat when we arrived and supportive when we had finished.
As Rob was driving that night and we were on support duties only, there was even the chance to sample the excellent real ale and famous Dunton cider that was on sale at the break – how come my family church back in Middlesbrough all those years ago never had that?
We wish Jaywalkers every success and albeit we won’t quite cross paths with them at the Cambridge Folk Festival this year, we hope to meet them again in the not too distant future. Finally, we would like to thank Simon for his invitation to again play at the excellent Dunton Folk and we very much hope to visit the club again sometime soon.