June 24th-27th - May Bank Holiday Festivals.

Photo by Dave Myatt, from Monday's Folk N' Ale Festival at The Old Brown Jug.

Saturday Daytime, Crewe Live Festival.
The 1st time The BlueYellows played together since last September and the first time we were all in the same room together in fact since a Pre-Christmas lunch (oh alright piss-up). This was a rehearsal, the first one since a break brought about through the birth of Lovely Casper, Emma's and hubby Pete's new son. I was expecting things to be a bit ropy but we slipped back into it like a duck to a mucky canal. In places we were actually "in the zone" and I forgot all sense of anything sensible, should be good...

Saturday Night, Crewe Live Festival.
Now much as I appreciate being put on for this solo performance, the circumstance here were "a bit ropy", the football was on the TV of the Corner Bar which was the evening's venue and I was to wait for half-time before my shortened set or potentially suffer the wrath of drunk football fans... not fun but "the show must go on" and it was one to put down to experience, you know with the best will in the world of all concerned sometimes you'll have a bit of a crap night, I did get some good feedback through from members of the small audience both then at the gig the following night.

Sunday. Crewe Live Festival gig 2
 An altogether much better experience, not only a listening, attentive audience but lots of friendly familiar faces including Abby and Mat from the superb 1980s style, electro-outfit Human Condition who played later that night. 

Bank Holiday Monday. The Newcastle-Undr-Lyme Jazz and Blues Festival (Subsection The Old Brown Jug Folk N' Foam Festival.
A great day/and night sub-festival organised by Andrew Tranter from the Agit/Folk band currently making waves, Headsticks. Again a lovely, attentive audience, some great acts (including Headsticks themselves) and lovely ale too, only the weather was dodgy at times but... this is a festival in England... onwards and upwards.... Special thanks to Tina Newbury of Simon J. Newbury Photography and Dave Myatt who has been taking great music-scene photos since the 1970s for the photos. Cheers to them and everyone involved in making it a fun weekend.

The Official T-Shirt.

Photo by Dave Myatt.

May 17th - Lounging with Albert

May 17th saw a new venue for me, The Albert Lounge in Shrewsbury, more a wine bar than a raucous rock-club, although they did a nice line in real ales as well :) 

As with any 1st-time, new venue I wasn't sure what to expect, it turned out to be a quiet place where most punters regarded the live music aspect more "background music" to their relaxed conversations, not what I'm used to but luckily they were very polite and the surroundings were lovely, also luckily for me, there were a few friendly faces around. Nick Bayes (a very busy man in music circles not least as regular bassist for Headsticks and Phil Maddocks as well as a regular session player for many bands) was my sound man and driver for the event and my friend Verity Gray not only came along but, as a very talented photographer, provided these great shots from my performance. Have a look at some of Verity's other brilliant shots on her blipphoto site at http://www.blipfoto.com/Snowy5 Thanks Verity!

Why Rosie is called "Rosie" Photo - Verity Gray.

Photo - Verity Gray.

Photo - Verity Gray.

Photo - Verity Gray.

May 5th - A Big Situation.

The Bank Holiday Weekend's Big May Birthday was held at Leek's rather marvelous Foxlowe Arts Centre by those equally marvelous people at The Situation. The acts were just too consistently fab to do them justice here and if you were one of the crowd, THANK YOU for being such attentive, enthustic music fanatics. Cheers!

Here's an article from The Leek Post on the event, featuring me on a pile of rubble!

Sally Pepper-one of many engaging performers.

http://www.leek-news.co.uk/Leek-News/19-acts-play-at-birthday-bash-07052013.htm

Official Poster, thanks to The Situation & Foxlowe Arts Centre.

Leek is beautiful, but I also liked
the dark, Satanic mills around the
corner.

My carbon-neutral travel plan!

Lovely Leek.