Was lucky enough to get a take-out of cask-conditioned Old Speckled Hen from work on Friday, just right to take to the festival with me :)
Soon met up with Trev and Angie with their family, Sparky and Freedom from the Alt Levs board and sat down to listen to The Hold Steady, which made quite pleasant background as I caught up on the gossip and guzzled my OSH. Rodrigo Y Gabriella stood out far more - frenetic punk-guitar playing from Mexico - I liked! Also liked the Ordinary Boys, depite the Big Brother connection; I hadn't thought I would. Too much like the Clash? Is such a thing possible? Might get their album, "Over The Counter Culture", at some point.
Gave Supergrass a miss to go and catch the end of Newton Faulkner, whom I'd seen before at Cityfest, and get a prime front-row position for The Saw Doctors. Fantastic set from the Irish folk-rockers, caught most of their classic songs before having to leave early to get the last train back from London Road, bit of a blow.
Next day woke up late but got to Stoke Park in time to enjoy Jimmy Cliff. Jimmy was playing classics like "Many Rivers To Cross" and Johnny Nash's "I Can
See Clearly Now", which was for once appropriate, as it was a bright sunshiney day! Jimmy had an orange silk suit on which only he could get away with, and was dancing up and down the stage with amazing energy. A good start to my evening, then!
By contrast, went to see Damien Dempsey with high expectations but sat through 2 limp songs and decided to try some of the smaller stages instead (there were 5 stages with non-famous bands, as well as a theatre stage and a comedy tent this year!). Not much to note though till Rory McLeod, who gave a really good performance, even though it was limited to half an hour. Rory kept his ramblings short - I don't mind him rambling, but I can see storytelling is better suited to long sets and venues such as the West End Centre (under threat, apparently). He did sing "When Mummy and Daddy Made Me" which got the biggest applause!
Crazy P and Captain were quite pleasant as I guzzled my Youngs Double Chocolate Stout, which I'd decanted into my big plastic beer bottle. Then it was off to see guitar hero Richard Thompson, who resembles my friend Simon except with a black beret. The crowd were inevitably demanding "Vincent Black Lightning" and "Beeswing", which he eventually obliged with, but there were evidently more recent fans there, shouting for "Dad's Gonna Kill Me", his contemporary anti-war song. And yes, he finished the encore with "Valerie", glad he still admires me ;-)
Richard's set unfortunately overlapped with Squeeze's, so that I ended up having to run down the field to catch them playing "Tempted" and have a sing along. Again, had to leave early, but sang "Labelled With Love" all the way back down the road to the station.
On Sunday my train to Guildford was cancelled - damm! But by an amazing coincidence one of the lads at Farnborough North suddenly said, "Are you Val Badger?" - turned out it was fellow blogger Lever!!! Lever, his mate Simon and me duly headed to the Prince of Wales to sup some real ale until the next train arrived. At the festiew, met up with Lever's other mate Phil, a huge Duke Special fan.
Had some port with me but discovered some real ale in the beer tent ("Guilfest Ale" at £3.50 a pint, ouch! Especially as it was apparently Tetley's Bitter) and some Brother's Pear Cider which was quite tasty. The Icicle Works were a bit disappointing, doing mainly cover versions, Toots and the Maytals were great though. Sadly I'd missed Simon Friend's set in the acoustic tent but caught him on the Ents 24 Stage. Think Lever quite liked him but Phil seemed a bit cynical! I thought it was a great set, had a dance to Men An Tol and Beanfield, he also played a couple of Paddy Stratton numbers which also got a lot of applause from the crowd of (mainly) Levellers fans.
Phil, silent though all the other acts, was yelling enthusiastically for Duke Special and singing wholeheartedly to all the songs. The star of the show for me however was Duke's drummer Chip, mad as a hatter but a totally amazing percussionist. Have got photos of him playing the egg whisk and cheese grater, as well as whacking the two huge bass drums. Marvellous.
Another dash across the field to Madness - by the time we got there we could only get as far as the mixing desk, and could hardly see Suggs and the boys! Still, had a good pogo to "Baggy Trousers", "House of Fun" and "Night Boat to Cairo" amongst others before the day sadly ended!
Shared taxi home due to crap train times and so ot in at an almost reasonable time for bed - just as well, was folding at the knees! Had fabulous time though, just a shame Patrick had other commitments for the weekend. Still there's always next year!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Friday, July 06, 2007
Gillingham Folk Day 2007
Well, I really shouldn’t be posting about this, it seems Gillingham’s Folk Day is Dorset’s best kept secret! It’s a lovely small festival based at the North Dorset Rugby Club, in a big (mostly waterproof) tent outside, with bar and food available in the clubroom. There was a little stage for Morris and Irish dancing, as well as Mummer’s plays. Also a few stands from local charities, crafts and CD selling.
The lineup was absolutely fantastic for a one day folk festival (although the Gillingham Festival itself went on all week, with music from various genres). Kirsty McGee and Mat Martin had the first slot – which shows you the quality of the other acts! I had seen Kirsty and Mat at Wickham Folk Festival last year and had been impressed by their impassioned song lyrics and their eco-friendly recycled guitars! Patrick was curious about one of their songs set in Manchester and I wanted to own the song about Hell (‘Fresh Water’) so we went up to them for a chat and a signed CD afterwards. They were nice to talk to - I admired Kirsty’s porkpie hat and she admired my shirt from Fat Face!
Psychedelic-folk buskers The Huckleberries were next up. I could see the good people of Gillingham thinking what on earth are this bunch of pikeys doing here, get orff moi laand! But although they look like the street-corner ambassadors that they usually are, the Huckleberries are excellent musicians. Especially Paul the fiddle player, who might look like he’s drunk the world but amazes all with his virtuosity – seeming to go into a trance like state, hardly moving the bow to produce the sweetest violin music. They played a variety of stuff too, from their own compositions to well-known Irish session music like ‘Raggle-Taggle Gypsy’ and ‘Wind That Shakes The Barley’. By contrast Flook were very polished, and despite their stunning musicianship were in danger of being a bit boring after playing one to many sets of jigs and reels.
Mike Silver got the audience singing with his hymn-like self-penned songs, including the famous (in the folk world) ‘Pretoria’ which Patrick was still singing in the car on the way back! It is a classic song; we should remember the days of Apartheid, and there’s still a lot of racial injustice out there.
I’m not a big fan of Cara Dillon although many are – somehow she always seems a bit wooden. She had just given birth to twins about 6 months ago but was as skinny as a rake! Some women eh. The twins were very cute though.
Next the moment we’d been waiting for – the arrival of the Oysterband on stage – yaaaaayyy!! I think not being the final band had affected their choice of set – there were a lot more slower numbers from their new album, but they did belt out some of their classics like Northern Lights (my favourite), Native Son and Everywhere I Go. They also played Patrick’s favourite, Uncommercial Song, so he was happy too! The somewhat too topical ‘The Flood’ was sung to the audience, JJ came down from the stage with Chopper and Alan Prosser so we felt well and truly part of the experience. The Oysterband are fantastic entertainers, no doubt about it.
A lot of folks left after the Oysterband, but us diehard dancers stayed right to the end for Salsa Celtica. A beautiful fusion of Celtic, Spanish and Latin music, they have bags of energy and joie-de-vivre, daring you not to dance! Think I’ve mentioned them before. The little Irish girls who had previously entertained us on the dance stage were up the front dancing away, and even the Morris dancers were getting on down to the beat!
Excellent little festival but let’s keep it quiet, we don’t want everyone turning up there!
The lineup was absolutely fantastic for a one day folk festival (although the Gillingham Festival itself went on all week, with music from various genres). Kirsty McGee and Mat Martin had the first slot – which shows you the quality of the other acts! I had seen Kirsty and Mat at Wickham Folk Festival last year and had been impressed by their impassioned song lyrics and their eco-friendly recycled guitars! Patrick was curious about one of their songs set in Manchester and I wanted to own the song about Hell (‘Fresh Water’) so we went up to them for a chat and a signed CD afterwards. They were nice to talk to - I admired Kirsty’s porkpie hat and she admired my shirt from Fat Face!
Psychedelic-folk buskers The Huckleberries were next up. I could see the good people of Gillingham thinking what on earth are this bunch of pikeys doing here, get orff moi laand! But although they look like the street-corner ambassadors that they usually are, the Huckleberries are excellent musicians. Especially Paul the fiddle player, who might look like he’s drunk the world but amazes all with his virtuosity – seeming to go into a trance like state, hardly moving the bow to produce the sweetest violin music. They played a variety of stuff too, from their own compositions to well-known Irish session music like ‘Raggle-Taggle Gypsy’ and ‘Wind That Shakes The Barley’. By contrast Flook were very polished, and despite their stunning musicianship were in danger of being a bit boring after playing one to many sets of jigs and reels.
Mike Silver got the audience singing with his hymn-like self-penned songs, including the famous (in the folk world) ‘Pretoria’ which Patrick was still singing in the car on the way back! It is a classic song; we should remember the days of Apartheid, and there’s still a lot of racial injustice out there.
I’m not a big fan of Cara Dillon although many are – somehow she always seems a bit wooden. She had just given birth to twins about 6 months ago but was as skinny as a rake! Some women eh. The twins were very cute though.
Next the moment we’d been waiting for – the arrival of the Oysterband on stage – yaaaaayyy!! I think not being the final band had affected their choice of set – there were a lot more slower numbers from their new album, but they did belt out some of their classics like Northern Lights (my favourite), Native Son and Everywhere I Go. They also played Patrick’s favourite, Uncommercial Song, so he was happy too! The somewhat too topical ‘The Flood’ was sung to the audience, JJ came down from the stage with Chopper and Alan Prosser so we felt well and truly part of the experience. The Oysterband are fantastic entertainers, no doubt about it.
A lot of folks left after the Oysterband, but us diehard dancers stayed right to the end for Salsa Celtica. A beautiful fusion of Celtic, Spanish and Latin music, they have bags of energy and joie-de-vivre, daring you not to dance! Think I’ve mentioned them before. The little Irish girls who had previously entertained us on the dance stage were up the front dancing away, and even the Morris dancers were getting on down to the beat!
Excellent little festival but let’s keep it quiet, we don’t want everyone turning up there!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
