We have had the pleasure of knowing Jonny Dyer and Vicky Swan for a number of years now and have always admired their stunning musicianship. However, we had never before seen them in action with Nick Hennessey, as the three piece seriouskitchen. As such, when we were invited by The Milkmaid Folk Club in Bury St Edmonds to support seriouskitchen, we were delighted to accept.
We had visited The Milkmaid twice before and know it to be a very well run club with excellent p.a., set up courtesy of the relaxed and expert Steve, and a team of dedicated folk fans who get the club readied on a Friday evening. We arrived early for the sound check and took the chance to catch up with Vicky and Jonny’s news and give some late help with Nick’s crossword.
Nick Hennessey is an immensely talented storyteller, singer and instrumentalist. His voice is glorious and complements the musical virtuosity of Vicky and Jonny perfectly. This current tour of serouskitchen splits into a 30 minute session of various songs and tunes and then, after a break, is taken up by an hour-long rendition of a Swedish folk tale – which I won’t spoil for anyone by telling anything of the tale of. However, the trio manage, over the course of an hour, to weave a musical and oral spell that binds the audience into an ancient tale. If the show is coming to a place near you, go and see it. With its drama and its humour, I hope it makes it onto radio and, perhaps with animation, would do very well as, perhaps, a Christmas special for TV.
Our own thirty minute set seemed to go very well, and we had some lovely feedback from audience members at the half-time break and after the show finished. We very much hope to get the chance to make a return to The Milkmaid at some time in the future to play some more of our music, and we wish the club well with their plans for 2013.