This gig saw Rob and I extending our ‘patch’ north, with a trip to support the wonderful Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts at the Rugby Roots Club. Following a mail-out of The Bite just before Christmas 2010, the organiser of Rugby Roots, Richard Barnes, invited us to play, and this was an invitation we were more than willing to accept.
Never trusting the British motorway system, especially at the weekend when we actually might want to use it, we set off nice and early on a bright spring evening and made it to the venue, the Lawrence Sherriff School in Rugby in very good time.
As we parked up in one of school’s quadrangles and started to get our kit out of the ‘tour bus’, we could hear some wonderful sounds emanating from an open door to the school hall – first, some very sweet mandolin music (which turned out to be Katriona warming up - on her second instrument! we heard the wonderful violin playing later) and then we heard what sounded like guitar and percussion, which was interesting because we thought they were a duo. And, of course, they are! What we were hearing was Jamie Roberts’ amazing technique of laying his guitar across his lap, dulcimer or steel guitar style, tuned to a D-chord (I think), and playing single notes or chords whilst hitting the sound box and the side of the guitar to give a percussive sound. Wow!
We went into the hall, introduced ourselves and had a brief chat with Katriona and Jamie who were both very friendly. We gave them a little bit of help getting the p.a. balance right on their sound check and then, very kindly, Jamie helped set up our sound check using their system.
We all then disappeared off to a classroom cum green room where the organisers had laid on sarnies and a cuppa, and we continued to have a very instructive and interesting chat with Jamie and Katriona. They had a tremendous amount to talk about having just finished a tour supporting Fairport Convention and were just embarking a quite gruelling tour of their own before kicking off into the summer festival season, which was all fascinating to listen to. We also met a very lovely member of the organisation team from the Cropredy Festival, who was very informative and knowledgeable about the local folk scene in the Midlands area and beyond.
Over and above a decent level of pre-event ticket sales, around 30 more people arrived and paid at the door giving an audience of c90-100, which created a nice atmosphere within the high vaulted school hall; not too crowded nor too sparse.
Rob and I did a good set that was well received, with Jamie again standing in as sound technician for us. We got some excellent feedback later, at both the break and the end of the evening – and we hope it might lead to some more bookings in the local area.
Katriona and Jamie gave an excellent performance, with some stimulating songs and great music . As undoubtedly two stars of the future, they were very well received and deservedly so for the entertainment they provided.
So, overall, we had a nice evening at a very fine music club, meeting two very pleasant and immensely talented young musicians and a nice club organisation team, we heard some great music and generally had a wonderful night out. We wish Katriona and Jamie very well indeed and look forward to meeting them again soon – we are on the same bill as they are at the St. Albans Folk Festival on the 18th June 2011.