Savage brilliance at Enzo.

October 14th, 2018

Grace Savage performing at Enzo, which was packed out for the whole event.

Festivals come and go throughout the Spring and Summer and nearly all of them are vibrant and special, not to mention really exciting and fun to play.

But the Words and Music Festival is really particularly close to my heart, and being my 'home' festival, gives me a chance to play a full-on part in promoting it and helping out as well as performing. 

Running a whole event such as this 'Enzo Acoustic Zone' which has over the last few years become a regular fixture at the festival can have it's own stresses, especially for someone with a natural shyness (or more specifically social anxiety) such as myself, and many artists in fact. Whereas in a recent gig, I allowed myself to shake off some of the pre-gig nerves in a run around a rainy car park, at this event I have to look after the other artists, help them to keep calm while getting anything they need done for them, liaise closely with the sound engineer (my good friend and regular music collaborator Dayve Dean in this case) and politely fielding any queries from members of the public, requiring me to suppress my own nervous energy and my natural desire really to get away from everyone, find a quiet space and maybe warm up on the guitar or dispel some nervous energy in some other way, in ways that I might normally do.

Anyway, any level of draining, nervous energy more than paid off by the bucket load both due to the incredible talent of my special guests, and the the wonderfully music-savvy, listening, attentive, music-mad audience that is a feature of this wonderful festival as a whole.

The soulful, earthy, gorgeous vocal tones of and wonderful new songs from Tiki Black, poignant, incisive, witty poetry of Oliver Lomax, the perfectly crafted songs of top producer Nigel Stonier and, well... what can I say about Grace Savage, a truly incredible talent, and a privilege to introduce her on stage at a point in her career when she has just been Radio One artist of the week, and with 4 titles of UK beatbox champion... just amazing.
Please do check these artists out.

So very privileged to have such huge talent at our #EnzoAcousticZone this afternoon @EnzoNantwich - every set was so different and so brilliant. pic.twitter.com/W1bCmKVL0D

— Words&Music Festival (@wordsnmusicfest) October 14, 2018

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I don't think anything quite this incredible has hit a cafe in Nantwich before. Live at @enzonantwich for the @wordsandmusicfestival earlier today - @_gracesavage - WHAT A TALENT! To my fellow rock-nerds, open your minds and check her stuff out!!! #Nantwich #beatbox #beatboxing #festival #musicfestival #cafe #pizza #espresso #artist #Radio1

A post shared by Jonathan Tarplee (@jonniegitahhr) on Oct 14, 2018 at 11:27am PDT

Espresso Love

Sunday October 16th, 2016

My 2nd gig at the 2016 Words and Music Festival, and a chance to do my Joolz Holland, not on the keys,  but rather in not only playing some tunes for the assembled pizza/coffee/music lovers, but also to introduce my wildly talented guests, Soulful songsmith Tim Lee, award winning poet Calum Dwyer and the wonderful virtuoso guitar playing and songwriting of Jo Bywater. 

Do click on their names, above so you don't miss out when they play a gig near you or have a product to listen to/read.

Many thanks to festival photographer, Chris Driver, for these photos!

Thanks too, to the lovely, attentive music-loving audience and Enzo themselves, providers of gorgeous coffees and Pizzas, for hosting!
Lots of very talented people around at this festival, and in the audiences. I got another lovely tweet from a very talented artist, this time, Hannah White! Thanks for letting me know about this, Hannah, and err, I'm sorry!

@JonnieGitAhhr my children are singing your song "watch out I'll stick you in my poem" 💜💜💜

— Hannah White (@songsbyhannah) October 16, 2016

Dan Logan on percussion with me. Photo by Chris Driver.

Poet, Calum Dwyer. Photo by Chris Driver.

Tim Lee, Photo by Chris Driver.

Jo Bywater, Photo by Chris Driver.

Espresso Bongo.

Sunday, Oct 18th 2015

Photo by Chris Driver.

To Enzo, purveyors of the finest espressos and pizzas around, again hosted a lovely Words and Music Festival afternoon. Producer/percussionist Dan Logan was in the hot seat driving, well, not bongos (that just makes for a better headline, perhaps), but a rather fabulous mini drum kit.

On top of all this loveliness, we had the most fantastically talented special guests in the form of ...click on their names to link to them and check them out!.. Tracey Browne, poet Oliver Lomax and hot properties in the folk world right now, Gilmore and Roberts. 

Musical and poetic brilliance, went down a storm of course.

Thanks everyone who came along and to a brilliant songster in his own right, Tim Lee, on the sound.

Photo by Mike Willacy of The Shop Sessions fame.

With 'Red Severn', before the show.
Thanks to Kirsty Rollings of The Cat FM for the photo

*Sound Guy Cam* - @JonnieGitAhhr and @theDanielJLogan smashing it today at @wordsnmusicfest @EnzoNantwich pic.twitter.com/3GR9hQ0bsJ

— Tim Lee - Songwriter (@timleesongs) October 18, 2015

It's all about to happen in Nantwich.

Oct 6th, 2015 (Updated 12/10/15)

My appearances at The Words and Music Festival this week;

Wednesday, Oct' 14th 9.30 - The Railway Hotel, Nantwich - Festival Anniversary Night (expect the unexpected).

Saturday, October 17th 10.30am Oxjam opener with The Blue Yellows, Nantwich Square.

Sunday, October 18th 2pm - Enzo Coffee Shop, Nantwich with Dan Logan (& guests).


The other night I went on Steven Bebe's show on Redshift Radio to talk about the upcoming Words and Music Festival and it's fantastic line up including Super-furry front man Gruff Rhys, Frazey Ford, Barbara Dixon, Mark Chadwick and talented super (not-so-furry) talented buddy, Tim Lee. 
I really think Gruff's American Interior show is going to be unforgettable, perhaps the last time he'll perform this in Northern Europe. I'd recommend finding out a bit more about it, which you can do at http://american-interior.com/. I'm lucky enough to be going to this show and I feel a bit like a 7 year old a week before Christmas.
The Blue Yellows are also playing (see poster) and I'm doing a special show with Dan Logan at the award winning independent coffee shop, Enzo, where I'll also introduce some top talent including UK Folk Award nominees Gilmore and Roberts. That's on Sunday, October 18th from 2pm.

Steve also played a couple of tracks from Attachment Theories.

Listen again here;

What's Happening on RedShift Radio with Steve Bebe (6th October 2015) by Steven Bebe on Mixcloud