
Festival Office
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This festival just seems to get better each year - for a
village festival the quality and of music is truly remarkable. As well as the
music this festival has a well stocked craft field, an arts trial, lots of
workshops (including Arabian dancing), Morris Dancing, a folk club and to
top it all a
special charity gig in the church.
The festival runs over three days, but unfortunately as I
was only there for the Saturday and Sunday I missed one of the headliners, Bill
Caddick, who only appeared on the Friday.
As the acts were performing both in the Coach and Horses and the Village Hall,
it was necessary to spend some time working through the programme to find out
how to see most of them.
I started off on Saturday by seeing Vicki Swan & Jonny
Dyer a very talented duo playing traditional tunes with Jonny on guitar and Vicki
on flute and Scottish Smallpipes. Then on to Maurice Dickson, who appeared last
year, This time he was joined by fiddle player Al Cooper. What a performance!
From heavy R&B to a beautifully crafted version of Raglan Road with a bit of
friendly banter in between - I'd vote for a third appearance next year! Then
there were 3 Daft Monkeys. Nothing daft about them at all - a great act, with
lots of influences coming through - there was some celtic, a bit of Reggae, but
most of all a bit of Punk - not the Suzie and the Microbes Variety, but
reminiscent of the more
sanitised band "Madness". The main thing about them and many of the
acts at the festival was that they were obviously enjoying it. Towards the end
of their session, a group of ladies, christened by Kristina Olsen as the
"Groovy Dancers", treated us to a variety of dance styles......
Oh Yes, Kristina Olsen and Peter Grayling (just in
from Oz) were brilliant. She puts so much feeling into her songs and the
depth of feeling is somehow echoed by Peter's cello. They are an act not
to be missed. She started off with Brownsville Blues, but then did mainly
her own material, including the classic "Yellow Piper" and then
finished up with the Big O.
After the "Gap" (why have a gap in the
afternoon?) and a session at the folk club I went to see George
Papavgeris. I'd heard a couple of his songs before, but I wasn't prepared
for the emotional experience of his stage performance. His presence was
compelling. All of his songs were skilfully crafted and performed but the
ones that really got to me were "Empty Handed" and "Walking
With The Fishes" a song about the Greek and Spanish divers who were
badly injured or mutilated by the bends. He manages to get across an
amazing empathy with the subjects of the songs. I saw him again on Sunday
and was not disappointed with another tremendous selection of songs. He is
a performer not to be missed.
Another act not to be missed is Cloudstreet, who perform a variety of
mainly traditional songs, with some excellent harmonies. I first heard
them about a year ago and it was their second performance at Wheaton
Aston. This time they played with Vicki Swan & Jonny Dyer. I wasn't
sure how well it would work, but it did. It worked brilliantly. Even my
all time favourite, "King Willy" was enhanced by the
instrumental backing.
More good acts on Sunday. There was "The Machine Breakers", a three piece
band fronted by a very talented singer songwriter, Julian Pollard, closely
followed by
"Left Hand Drive", another three piece band again fronted by
another talented singer songwriter, Chris Carr. This band also have the
good fortune to have a brilliant harmonica player, Jim Gilmour, in it's
number - just a shame they don't do some heavy rockin' blues - but I
suppose they get close ....
Finally the concert at the Coach and Horses
finished with the acclaimed and accomplished singer songwriter John
Richards and his new "The John Richards Band". I was expecting a
lot from them and I wasn't disappointed. A great act to finish what turned
out to be a great festival.
I've only reviewed about half of the acts which were
on. The complete list (hopefully) is as follows
Emma & The Professor, Marsden., Blant &
Squire, Cloudstreet, The Mighty Rooster, The Machine Breakers, Toreth, 3
Daft Monkeys, Bill Caddick, Vicki Swan & Jonny Dyrer, Maurice Dickson
& Al Cooper, Kristina Olsen & Peter Grayling, Rundogrun, Emma
& The Professor, John Spiers & Jon Boden, The Demon Barbers, Dave
Taylor, George Papavgeris, Left Hand Drive, The John Richards Band,
Fidaddle, No Strings Puppet Theatre, Antonio Federico, Soname, Passion
Dance
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Rundogrun
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