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Full House at The Woodman, unfortunately it wasn’t, but for the people that stayed away they missed a cracking night. Ian introduced a trio of regular Woodman stalwarts to start the night, with spots by Bryn Phillips, Keith Judson and Velvet Green. Ironically Velvet Green sang a new song ‘Redman’ by 70’s prog band Capability Brown, and whose 6 musicians swapped instruments throughout their live set. Watching Full House was reminiscent of those Capability Brown days, as all 5 musicians swapped instruments regularly throughout the evening’s entertainment.
The Full House line up consisted of Dave Russell: Vocal, Guitar, Bass, fiddle, & Viola Bouzouki. Nick Mitchell: Vocal, Acoustic guitar, & Octava Mandola. Mark Woolley: Various percussion and whistles. Chris Lee: Vocal, acoustic & electric mandolins, Fretless bass, & acoustic Guitar, and finally Ian Jones: Melodeon, Flute and whistles.
I have always admired multi talented musicians and we were not disappointed as they hit us with an original song ‘Welcome Back’ to start the evening off. The Lindisfarne hit Marshall Riley’s Army followed this, and then a Hornpipe they called ‘Waiting for Blair’, one for the ‘Woodman shakers’ fondly remembered by the band. After a quick swap of instruments they did an American song called ‘They all fall down’, followed by the title track off their new album written by Mark Woolley ‘No Ladders That Tall’, it is also where Dave swapped his bass for fiddle,
Mark played Flute and Chris played the superb sounding fretless bass. Another instrument change and a quick joke by Chris Lee about a Fat drunken transvestite who just wanted to eat, drink and be Mary (groan) and they continued with
a traditional song called ‘Unquiet Grave’, followed by Nick’s song ‘Time to Stray’. The next song the brilliant ‘Did you like the Battle
Sir’ I have heard done many times by the ‘John Richards band’ and it so happened we had in the audience Bev Pegg who was the co-writer of the song.
After the break and a catch up on various gossip among friends, the band started the second session with ‘Troublesome times’, followed by ‘Scoperil’, ‘Jack Robinson’, ‘Ossian’s circle’, the Fairport song ‘Walk Awhile’, ‘Black sheep’, and the superb Pete Morton song ‘When we sing together’. After the applause Ian called the band on for an encore and they sang ‘I’ll Fly away’, followed by one for the audience shakers, two instrumentals called ‘Uncle Bernard’s’ and ’Jenny Lynn’s’, a great evenings entertainment by a group of quality musicians.
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