Well, the night we had been looking forward to for so long had arrived – we were off to the Compass Theatre in Ickenham near Uxbridge to support the great Emily Smith. It is rare that I go straight out and buy someone’s records immediately I hear them, but I did just that with Emily Smith after hearing her on a BBC Scotland Hogmanay Night show a few years ago and have been a fan since.
Just to be sure that we didn’t end up stranded on that car park known as the M25 at rush-hour, we met up early for the off. However, London’s big roundabout is ever capricious, bewilderingly hosting almost no traffic at all that evening, the omens were good and with an hour and a half to spare we had arrived at the theatre and were shaking hands with Uxbridge Folk Club’s visionary organiser, Archie Macauley, and with the great lady herself (tucking into a plate of pre-concert pasta in the Green Room as I recall – we didn’t overstay our friendly welcome, it’s not fair).
This was indeed the high life – Archie even organised for us to have our own back room for tuning up and a pre-concert pee. The stage and auditorium were a very nice size; it couldn’t be better. We unpacked the instruments, tuned up and had a quick rehearsal. Following a wee bit of confusion, Archie stepped in and put the theatre’s sound guys in touch with Emily’s sound guy, and we were able to do a sound check and the audience was allowed in.
The audience was very much our type of listening audience and we performed a varied set of material from The Bite which was well received. Sadly, despite the excellent best efforts of the various sound teams, the p.a. system created a few problems for us throughout – but, in truth, the scale of the theatre was such that it didn’t make a huge difference. At one point I asked those in the audience if they heard our last song all right and some wonderful soul answered back form the darkness, ‘it was lovely’ – great encouragement.
We were very keen to publicly show our support for what Archie Macauley has done to revive the Uxbridge Folk Club up and running again. He has a powerful vision for the club and, having met him and dealt with him over our support for Emily, I have absolutely no doubt that he and his excellent club committee will realise that vision.
In no time at all our time was up, and it was on to the audience break . Rob and I put the instruments away and went to meet whoever wanted to talk to us. We met some old friends from Harrow for whom Rob and I had played ceilidh music for, and who were pleased and surprised to see us pop up in a different guise. We also met some regular members of the Uxbridge Folk Club who thankfully were very complimentary about the performance. We sold a few CDs.
Emily Smith was excellent, as one might expect – playing with her two colleagues an almost exclusively Scottish set, mixing her songs and traditional songs and, for an encore, the wonderful Richard Thompson classic ‘Waltzing’s for Dreamers’. If you don’t know Emily Smith’s work, look it out!
Overall, I think everyone had a good night. We made some new friends; we had a great experience; we met, heard and were thanked by one of today’s great folk acts; and, a few days later, Archie contacted us to book us in for the Uxbridge Folk Club on the 15th September! The ideal end to a great night!
However, ..............the M25 never let’s anyone off lightly. A closed slip road meant we ended up going the wrong way round the M25 and eventually had to turn around near Heathrow(!) before we could start making it home in the right direction.
Finally, we would like to record our thanks to our great friend Jacqui Sharpe who showed us fantastic support in bringing six of her friends over to Ickenham from St Albans to see us perform. Many of those who came with her knew very little about who we are and what we do, and were relatively new to folk music. Speaking very briefly with Jacqui afterwards, I think a great night was had by all..