|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
A
Review of Five English Festivals Ray Downes.
Photographs Jason Downes
Another dismal summer did not deter some five million people attending around 450 festivals of all types in Britain this year. The environmental impact of such gatherings is starting to be addressed and many festival organizers have taken action on re-using plastic food and drink containers, waste management and transport. Such festivals are huge source of income for local businesses. Glastonbury, the worlds biggest arts and music festival, generated 70,000,000 pounds for the local economy. I attended 5 festivals in various counties of England and this review is a sample of some of the 150 acts I enjoyed.
The first festival was in the attractive village of Ireby in Cumbria. The main venue was the grounds of a large house and despite the festival being reasonably small it offered a choice UK and overseas line up. The Coal Porters delighted the crowd with their original off field approach to Bluegrass music and witty introductions. They moved into the audience without p.a. to perform their encore song and made a reference to energy use “This is the way gigs will be in the future!” Vin Garbutt was on form, singing well and making cracks including the one about Bognor Regis being the queen’s toilet. He said he was feeling well enough now to play a few whistle tunes. Late 60’s folk star Julie Felix, was sounding splendid at 70 yrs old and was celebrating 44 years on the road. She gave us old favourites like Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall and Universal Soldier and an anti Afghan/Iraq war song Children of Abraham. Canada’s Wailin’ Jennys had a new line up, some new material and were including more gospel songs like their self penned Glory Bound. They performed cracking harmony arrangements of Emmylu Harris’ Deeper Well and their showstopper, One Voice. Another Canadian band, eclectic folk-rock combo, The Paperboys, with top fiddler and dancer Ashley McLeod, was the perfect choice to close the festival with their full on blend of Celtic and Mexican crossover music. The icing on the cake was when the guys invited The Jennys on stage for a medley of golden Oldie folk songs of American Pie ilk.
Brampton Live in Cumbria had a splendid line up with incredibly talented young performers alongside such greats as Richard Thompson. The artistic directors had searched out original acts and one such performer, Devon Sproule, on tour from Virginia, hit the spot with her unique evocative style and delicate delivery of songs combining Appalachian, folk and jazz influences. Seth Lakeman and his band was hugely popular especially with the young punters. His bracket of songs, mainly about his native Devon, was punched out over a cranked up sound. Queensland’s Cloudstreet were on a mammoth UK tour and this time had Rebecca Wright on cello. I particularly liked their Morris song Dance Up the Sun, and a Kalgoorlie mine rescue song Down in The Goldmine. Later John and Nicole joined their U.K. friends Vicky Swann and Jonny Dyer to perform jointly songs from each other’s repertoires. A sort of Brisbane meets Essex! Young and amazingly talented BBC Award winning foursome, Last Orders, were in great demand on the festival circuit. They came together following their days at Newcastle uni when they played in Kathryn Tickell’s 17-piece band Folkestra. They played traditional tunes and some self composed ones like, Taking The Tent Down,(after a festival) with a flair that belied their youth. They had added talented 17-year-old singer Maz O’Connor to the line up since I saw them last year and she sang a sterling rendition of a song learnt from James Fagan, The Last of The Great Whales. For sheer novelty value and clever fun The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain got my vote. Imagine seven seated serious uke players in black suits, all singing all strumming who took any song from Pinball Wizard to a Handel Air and reinterpreted it for the uke. They were surreal, fun and the hit of the festival and what’s more we were reliably informed Cherie Blair plays a ukulele! Leeds based radical group Chumbawamba were on form and played a medley of their hits including Fade Away, Add Me (My Space spoof song) and I Wish That They’d Sack Me.
Summer weather arrived for the weekend of Warwick festival, which took place in the grounds of a private school and had excellent facilities. There was so much good music on offer and like Brampton, established big names rubbed shoulders with burgeoning young performers. Warwick’s dance content was the best of any festival I attended with stacks of Morris teams displaying and wild ceilidhs each evening with the best of UK’s dance bands. Jez Lowe with his full band The Bad Pennies was on top form and took us through a North East medley of his songs like Greek Lightening and The Caller plus material from the BBC radio ballads with Kate sounding in fine voice on The Waltzer. Watch out for Jez and Kate touring Australia in 2009. Jez’s fellow countryman, the affable Bob Fox, (yes he was wearing shorts) interacted well with the audience and had them willingly singing choruses and did a driving version of one of Jez’s songs, Jack Crawford. After all the mixed criticism from the folk media, I was looking forward to a live performance from Rachael Unthank and The Winterset. This female trio touched me. They oozed charm and theatre and had wonderful rhythmical voices. I loved their offbeat arrangement of Northumbrian songs such as Blue Bleeding Blind Drunk. and delicate accompaniment on piano and occasional high heels foot percussion. England’s best live band, Bellowhead, an eccentric eleven- piece ensemble, defined as English World Music, was top of the bill. They were such a classy act and sometimes when they were playing there were so many different instruments so anarchically being played it seemed that chaos might ensue. Lead singer Jon Boden (Basil Fawlty in manic mode) had some new songs to offer from their September released cd. I particularly liked the Norfolk traditional song Fakenham Fair and couldn’t get the chorus of Jordan out of my head all next day. French woman Flossie Malavialle, now based in NE England, had teamed up with madman Keith Donnelly to perform in the exquisite small theatre on the school site. She intrigued us with her quaint French- Geordie accent and charmed us with her stories, but it was her songs from Piaf to Vin Garbutt that wowed us.
Cambridge Folk Festival always comes up trumps and brought some of the best of the world’s performers together for 15000 punters to be able to see acts not featured by other folk festivals. A significant oasis in the sea of people watching the top acts in the arena was the club tent, which beautifully created an intimate folk club aura. It was worth the $300 ticket just to see The Waifs perform on the main stage to an English festival crowd. Backed by a 4-piece band and having a ball on stage, they opened with a ripping Everlasting Love then followed with a medley of their hits including West Australian Fisherman’s Daughter, Bridal Train (which moved me to tears) and then finished with Lighthouse. The Imagined Village was an audiovisual production with an outstanding cast of 16 brilliant artists, which explored in music and prose, Englishness, and was a great attempt to bring the music into the 20th century. As one of the cast, Billy Bragg, remarked “What the Beatles would have sounded like if they had listened to English music.” It was indeed a thrilling and thought provoking live show and brought together English and Indian instruments. Cracking singing of Cold Haily Night and an updated Hard Times Of Old England came from Martin and Eliza Carthy who joked about resting the melodeon on her pregnant bump! Female singers were much in evidence with k.d.lang, Martha Wainwright, Devon Sproule, Joan Armatrading, and Judy Collins heading the cast. Martha Wainwright was a breath of fresh air after a spate of loud bands. She remarked to the crowd “I’ve been coming here for years and this place always looks the same” At one point her band left the stage and she played a song written by her dad Loudon about the war in Yugoslavia. Karine Polwart’s performance was delightful, despite her songs being somewhat sombre, and her voice was so lilting. Songs that hit the spot for me were Sorry, Sun’s Coming Over The Hill and Rivers Run, a song written for her young son.
English folk festivals run from around mid May to October Expect to pay from $90 for a small festival to $300 (Cambridge) including camping with facilities. Many festivals sell out months in advance. The English folk magazine Froots publish the full list of UK festivals around April each year and is available on www. My thanks to the festival organizers who generously supplied press passes for myself and my photographer son Jason.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ©This
site and all images within this site are the property of Ray Downes,
Jason Downes or the Artists shown |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
