Middlewich 22 - What a Blast!

18th and 19th June 2022 (updated 21st June to include video footage) 

If you see my previous post you can see that for this and a variety of other logistical reasons we were feeling fairly under-rehearsed for the two hour gigs we were scheduled to perform across the weekend.

 The Middlewich Folks & Boat Festival was back after a Covid-induced absence of two years and was now actually better than ever, with acts including Cast, Gruff Rhys, The Waterboys, Boo Radleys and more. Founding festival organiser Lizzie was back at the Helm in collaboration with the local council and I'm sure played a huge part in making this the best one yet, 30 years on from the 1st event.

Under-rehearsed though we were, we've now reached the stage where we know each other so well musically, we can not only take risks but jam-out songs successfully with gusto and with a sort of free-flowing, exhilarating vibrancy even though we might not know them brilliantly well yet, as was the case with the live debut for  "The Stronger You Love", newish songs in terms of playing live like "Bella" and "new" cover "Closing Time".

In a complete reversal of what I'd expected, the Saturday gig was much busier (in spite of a slightly more out-of-town venue) than I expected and the Sunday one seemed to be more "hangover day" with a very small but nevertheless responsive audience.

The gang played absolutely brilliantly and it was a joy to see so many old friends and as meet lots of new people who seem to have enjoyed it all.

Thanks X

Photo: Stephanie Burgess

Audience member Ruby danced and joined us on tambourine at one gig!
Photo: Tim Lee

Photo: Tim Lee

Photo: Tim Lee

Photo: Time Lee

Photo: Tim Lee

The Songwriter Sessions

October 11th, 2021 

Photo by Becky Evans.

As part of the opening night of the week-long festival of world class musical, poetry and spoken word; The Words and Music Festival, I performed along with a select few other singer songwriters from the North West, namely the brilliant Sam Lyon, Dayve Dean and Tiki Black who was also joined by top producer and tunesmith, Nigel Stonier.

A couple of the artists mentioned what a wonderful, listening audience we had (as I'm pleased to say is typical of this festival).

 

Not a bad start.

 

Phone video from The Words & Music Festival team.

Sam Lyon

Tiki Black accompanied by Nigel Stonier

Dayve Dean

 

LIVE... !

 Alsager Music Festival - Sunday at The Lodge

*Free Entry 

*Outdoors with cover

Into 'The Groove' at The Boat That Rocks.

May 23rd, 2015; The Boat That Rocks Festival.

Much as me and my fellow Blue Yellows were sad, though not surprised to see Hayley go (she will always be part of the band-family and will be welcome to join us on backing vocals and a cow-bell or tambourine any time), we have been rehearsing with our new drummer Dave 'The Groove' Coomer. I hope he doesn't mind me calling him this!

Dave is a very spontanious and experimental musician with a broad background in drumming from brass bands, heavy rock and everything in between, and who in his own words, is 'not afraid to hit the drums'!  Dave, just as importantly to the rest of us, is a super-nice guy and a bit of a big kid so he fits in very well!

Rehearsals are one thing but this was the real thing and Dave was on superlative form and I feel now that as we've done the BYs thing with him in public, he is a fully fledged bandee! In fact, what Dave brings to the band is more than just backing us, he has brought a new energy and sounds with him, and we are finding distinct ways of playing with these novel sonic forces that are now in the ether. It's a great feeling, a new band in a sense - exciting.

The gig in question was 'The Boat That Rocks' Festival organised by the lovely chaps at Middlewich Music. While traveling to the town, the organisers were contacting me to see if we could go on at a different time due to some last-minute changes to the running order, but this looked really unlikely as we had arranged a tight schedule for everything to be in place to be ready for our set time already, as well as expecting people from afar afield as Wigan who also had plenty of other things to fit in over the bank holiday weekend. Such is the way of festival-type events, I hope they didn't take too much umbrage at my responses here. Another understandably typical issue of these kind of occasions is lack of time and space to set up, though I think it was helped by Mr Coomer's choice to use the plug-in-and-play electronic drum kit which he has been using at band rehearsals so much. I also should have brought an extension lead for my mini pedal board, the lack of which meant I had to stick with one-guitar-sound-per-song which was a major compromise for me, but I'll remember for next time!

This all turned out to be minor details anyway as the main thing is it was an event with a great atmosphere,we played well, seemed to entertain all the lovely friendly folk who turned up and we had a ball. We shortened the set by two or three songs in recognition that things were running late by now, but managed to catch a great set by Photo Booth Smile and the talented Chris Tavener (see video) who performed while we set-up behind him! 

Big thanks to Middlewich Music who did a sterling job in the very considerable organising that such things require, at times on-the-hoof, and who not only held it all together but made for a great event and atmosphere throughout. Most importantly, thanks to all those who turned up, sang along and jigged about! 



We played Farmer John ( Harris, Don F. / Terry Jr, Dewey cover), Big Low Copper Moon, Killing Me, Love is the Answer, The Owl in the Willow, Where the Sky Meets the Sea, These Boots are made for Walking (Lee Hazlewood cover), No Tobacco, No Jesus.