July 27th - Bidstock, The Snakey Jake Sessions.

I was lucky enough to be asked to play The Bidstock Festival, a small but very lively festival at Wheelock near Sandbach, not once but twice i.e. a solo acoustic set on the Saturday and with the band on the outdoor stage on Sunday.
My set on Saturday was as part of "The Snakey Jake Sessions". Pete Snakey Jake Johnson. Pete died in the spring this year, he was a renowned blues guitarist (see for example the book Ain't Bad for a Pink) and was also much loved and respected by musicians of all genre's throughout the North West of England as the owner of Custom Amplification in Crewe. Pete could always be relied upon to go the extra mile, if you went into his shop with a gig booked that evening, desperate for some spare PA bits and pieces, he would dig them out for you. In recent years I had become just as accustomed to seeing him around the canals as a fellow boater, looking very happy sat on the front of his narrowboat near Nantwich. 
Some great acts were playing including Phil Gemmell, Hayley Strangelove (who also joined me on a song), Rivers & Kelly (with a wonderfully and highly appropriate rootsy sounding set) and Christie Bratherton, awesome all.

Bidstock crowds.

Photo by Martin from Rivers & Kelly.

The man himself.