na-mara had the honour of being ‘In Concert’ at the St Albans Folk Festival this year - with notices in the official programme and everything! For this, we have the wonderful Jan Strapp , who runs the Redbourn Folk Club, to thank. Jan was kind enough to book us for a full gig some time ago and it was a very pleasant surprise to find out that this was to form part of the Festival.
Despite some competing football events on telly, we had a nicely full room. Many of our friends came along to support us, along with our new friends from the excellent Redbourn club. We very much concentrated on material about to be released on The Bite, plus a few new bits and pieces - and we got a lovely encore call. This was a really lovely night.
One of the great pleasures of the evening was that we were supported by a phenomenal new talent, Marianne Neary. As I understand it, Marianne has recently won a singer-song writing competition in London and, as part of that, been given a number of bookings at local folk clubs. For someone that has only played a few times in public and has just begun song writing, the quality of her material, the beauty of her singing and her outstanding stage presence mark her out as someone that the folk world should look out for. If she chooses a career in folk music rather than following her PhD studies into a science career, this is a name that will make a mark – you heard it here first!!