Reading Folk Club has been supportive to us from our earliest beginnings and it is always a pleasure to return there. Now based in RISC, the Reading International Solidarity Centre performers at the club can be confident of a good, quiet, airy space to play in, with an appreciative, friendly and attentive audience close up. There is good food and beers in the wonderful cafe downstairs, and the whole place has an easy going vibe. Una and Colin, with the help of others, run an excellent club with a nice programme of performers, its own newsletter as well as its own mini book stall.
The other joy of travelling to play in Reading is to see friends and family. We have many personal ties with the town and, though not necessarily followers of folk, our pals have been similarly very supportive over the years and they always come out to see us.
Together with club regulars, this meant we had a pleasingly full house for the evening. Malcolm proved an excellent MC and kicked the proceedings off with a couple of very nice songs – covet not thy MC’s guitar (a Guild) could be the 11th Commandment. Malcolm was followed by a trio of musicians playing some very lovely French and British tunes.
Our first set went very well with our version of L’Amant de Nantes was particularly well received.
At the break, I spoke at length to a gentleman who had picked up on our translated Breton seas-shanty, Three Bonny Ships. He came to talk to me about the shanty crew of British ex-pats he sings with in Brittany. It certainly sounds like he is having a great time down there, visiting the various festivals and meeting with the French shanty crews.
Malcolm kicked off the second half with another nice song and after some more very nice floorspots with good vocals and compositions and a very funny song about ‘waking up at Waterloo - we went on for our second set.
The Readifolk audience is a listening audience but it also one keen to join in and sing. With their vocal support we had ourselves a very nice second half. The Garden of England is really maturing into the set now and Navahos and Pirates is proving a wonderful punchy end to the show.
The audience was kind enough to call for an encore and, with an eye on our next outing, A Spanish Civil War themed fundraising event in our hometown of St Albans, we finished the evening off with our rendition of Ewan McColl’s Jamie Foyers.
It was lovely chatting with club members, close friends and very close family before packing up and setting off home. Eventually, we said our goodbyes to the truly lovely Una and Colin and hit the road. Poor old Rob was driving but I had a beer stashed away for the journey – oh yes, its rock and roll in the tour bus you know!