It was certainly a cold night for heading out from St Albans into central Essex for our last gig of 2012. Our friends Jonny Dyer and Vicky Swan had mentioned us to the Great Bardfield Folk Club with respect to doing a showcase and, club organiser, Anna Bass had kindly taken up their advice and invited us along.
It was a quick turnaround from the dayjob and Rob was still munching his sandwich as we jumped in the car and set off. The M25 was rush-hour busy and we were worried for a while about getting to the club in time for a sound check. However, things cleared and we arrived in plenty of time.
The Great Bardfield Folk Club is held in a truly gorgeous building – the High Barn on the edge of the town. The venue advertises itself as the best small venue in the UK and one can readily understand why. Booking, as it does, a wide range of different types of acts throughout the year, the venue is also blessed with a great sound system and technical staff who know how to get the best out of it.
Throughout the evening, we were very well looked after by the club organisers who themselves constitute the band, Two Coats Colder and who opened the evening in style.
The acoustic evenings at Great Bardfield Folk Club proceed by having a round the room session, where people come up to the area in front of the stage or perform from where they are sitting. This is punctuated by two showcase sessions making use of the full stage set up.
Given next day travel requirement, members of the other showcase band for the evening, an exciting new band called The Last Drop, took to the stage first. Check them out – as a four-piece they play ‘gothic folk’ , with grizzly tales of an Hogarthian nature, and they have a bright future ahead of them. They have excellent stage presence, with costumes to match for some of the band, and they deliver their pacy music with real conviction. Listen out for their excellent ‘Tyburn Jig’.
Elsewhere, throughout the evening, the remarkable feature of the club to me, over and above the remarkable venue in which it was being held, was the quality of singing. Floorspot after floorspot performed wonderfully well, sometimes accompanied, sometimes a capella.
We played a set of five songs that seemed to go down very well and it was certainly a joy to play with such a good sound system. Tuning was not the worry we thought it might be on such a cold evening, and we managed to deliver a good mix of the music we play.
After a return to a last set of floorspots, the club broke for the evening. Rob and I departed to the sounds of club members warming themselves up before leaving, with a fine rendition of The Boar’s Head Carol.
Even this late in the year, motorway planners can still have a few tricks up their sleeve . It would have been nice to have had an earlier warning of the M11/M25 junction being closed, as we could have planned a completely different route home. So, in the event, we had to sail past the M25 and work our way home around the lovely North Circular. Being a bit cold by the time all the guitars and other instruments had finally been unloaded, I felt the need for ......a bowl of porridge and a cuppa. Now that’s rock and roll!
Best wishes for 2013 to all at the Great Bardfield Club and to members of Two Coats Colder and The Last Drop. We look forward to seeing them on the circuit in the coming months.