We realise that we haven’t really mentioned it but, we did four gigs in one weekend. Three in one day. We just really, really, love being tired (really). Such martyrs. We suffer for our art.
We suffer for our art again today, as we sit surrounded by Kleenex, in a Sudafed haze, smelling of eucalyptus and menthol, writing a blog about Derby Folk Festival. We are very glad that Katy has a small fiddle to play as we tell you this - it’s a real head-cold too. We are so bunged up and not quite with it, we reckon that even if there were an infinite amount of us, with an infinite amount of typewriters and an infinite amount of time, we still wouldn’t be able to write a Shakespeare play (if this seems random - as most of our blog often does, look up the Infinite Monkey Theorem). Interesting fact - did you know that the past tense for ‘William Shakespeare’ is Wouldiwas Shookspeared.
Moving swiftly on, our first two gigs were hosted by the superb Furthest from the Sea Music, Comedy and Arts. The first being for the event Wild About Shipley - hosted at Shipley Park.
Knowing nothing of Shipley Park, we may have arrived in inappropriate clothing. By ‘may have’ we mean ‘did’ and by ‘we’ we mean ‘Beth’. Favourite trainers be damned, Beth slipped her way graciously down the muddied hills to the stage. If the word graciously here conjures up an image of a new born fawn trying to stand on ice, then that would be pretty accurate.
We met with Furthest From the Sea and divvied up the band roles. Ian went to get coffee (and gave up after about half an hour in the queue), Dean set about unpacking instruments and getting stage ready, Katy went to get bags for life from the car to help us have somewhere to put things that wasn’t on the muddy floor, Beth did… Well, actually, Beth did very little as usual. Stood there. Passing comments every now and then about how dirty her shoelaces were. Super helpful. Thanks Beth. Here is where we do our first shout out to Eileen - she saved the day by tootling off to her shop to get some cardboard from some seats they had ordered that week - ripped open the packaging and lined the mud with the cardboard, so we had somewhere to place the cajon and kick pedal.
Now, as a four piece we come with a lot of instruments and need an inordinate (some might say unnecessary) amount of inputs. So second shout out of the blog goes to Colin. If his name actually was Colin… We have tried our best to remember names but we did do four gigs in one weekend - did we mention that?! And it was now over a week ago, and some of our brain synapses have been replaced with pure phlegm. So, Colin, if that is your real name, you’re a star! Stepping in last minute he managed to handle our whole tech spec off the cuff, one mic down, and a desk that was too small for all the inputs… FEAR NOT, Colin to the rescue - he had a bigger desk in his car! Super Colin, saves the day.
So this gig was mid-day and at a popular family park. If there is one thing that we love about these kinds of events it’s dancing kids! Shout out here to our gal Pearl - Dean gave her the shaker when we had finished Manifesto and she did a pearling job! Whey.
We felt a little rude quickly packing up all our gear and throwing it at speed into our cars and screeching off as fast as we could to our next gig in the middle of Derby. It was a quick turn around time and never have we felt more like the majority of our lives are spent packing and unpacking boxes of wood and driving them around the country. The boxes of wood are our instruments - we aren’t lumberjacks, or tree surgeons, or old school ventriloquists (they made their dummies out of wood).
Waterfall stage! Our second gig for Furthest from the Sea. We thought that maybe it was called the waterfall stage because the imagery of a waterfall is powerful, but calming. Turns out it was quite literal. Did someone say Kootch were playing outside?! Yup. It rained. A lot. Beth managed to accidentally pile some of her bags near some kind of overflow pipe. Wetness. Wetness everywhere. Huge thanks to Bob for the introduction, Ash for the sound, Matt for the invitation.
Then off to the Quad for a coffee (thanks to Graham, supporting us struggling artists with caffeine) and a Mediterranean veg and hummus sandwich (and maybe a cheeky vegan sausage sandwich, too). Beth left her sweeteners in the cafe and we trudged to the next gig at the Old Bell. Beth is a calamity if anyone hasn’t figured it out yet.
We passed Winter Wilson in the green room - they can’t get away from us at the minute, like crazy stalkers. Probably a stalking step too far to set up an entire band, write songs, practice really hard (or at least eat lots of biscuits), just to get invited to play places so we can follow them around. We don’t do things by halves, and we don’t see why stalking should be an exception.
The great things about playing festivals is getting to see some of the amazing talent that get put on stages with slightly more square footage than our stages (and slightly less meterage of rain). It’s been a while, and did the blog writer mention they are full of cold?? So actually rather difficult to remember the order things went in, so we will stick to this being about us, okay? Look, it’s our blog, we can write about ourselves if we want! Look, we had done three gigs in ONE DAY. So the third gig was great! It was in the main bar so we were just generally disrupting the locals usual peace and quiet - they didn’t seem to mind. We did a Pearl and handed the shaker to a large table just out in front. Totally bossed it between the 8 of them. We appreciate you. Dean certainly does, he could blame being out of time on you then (it’s okay we know it wasn’t your fault).
Okay, okay, we had an ace day - and were a bit shattered, but happy and ready to do it all again the day. We are going to get a little soppy in this section, so bear with, there might be some jokes, we don’t know, we haven’t written it yet.
So, Sunday. Thinking about the Sunday at the festival still makes our hearts happy. Not that Saturday didn’t feel the same way, but there was just something about Sunday that was everything a folk festival should always be. The bands that were playing, much like Saturday, were really impressive. A really solid mix of beautifully arranged traditional folk and new music written in a folk style.
The first shock to the system was the very bands we fangirl over came to watch our set, even if just for a little bit, in the main bar. We clocked 50% of Old Spot (front or back end, you decide. They said they liked our stuff so, less likely to be the end with the ears, we suppose), at least one member of Tarren and Sarah Matthews - there may have been others we don’t know. Winter Wilson often come watch some of our set (we’ve seen you! (And we appreciate it, even if it is to just look at each other and go ‘every year - we really would have thought they would have got a little better by now, but no.’)) however, it’s rare to see that many at one gig. Dean very glad he has no idea who anyone is, Beth very glad that when she sings she feels she isn’t in the room anymore so doesn’t really notice, Katy very glad that she had a fiddle lesson this one time from Old Spot and Ian very glad that… Well… Ian probably just very glad his playing is shit hot and he doesn’t really need to concern himself with who is or is not watching.
Katy and Ian had watched Old Spot earlier in the day, Beth and Dean waiting eagerly to watch them for the first time at Cafe #9 in Sheffield in a couple of weeks. But we did all catch Doug Eunson and Sarah Matthews and Tarren on the Sunday night. Just wow! Doug and Sarah sang a version of Willies Lady - Beth mouthed along perfectly to every single verse as Dean rolled his eyes. It’s potentially one of the longer Child Ballads (apart from maybe Tam Lin) but one of Beth’s faves as her dad used to play it beautifully - with all the twiddly-bits all the way through, rather than just the intervals - he always said it was the hardest song he played, and for his ability that was always impressive. Then Tarren. There are no better bands on this earth than those clearly made of best mates and massive nerds. The folky nerdyness was overflowing with modal tunings (again, Beth’s dad would have loved that) and stories of here the songs had come from, why they were written, and what purpose morris dancing serves.
As if that wasn’t enough, the best ending ever. Rolling Home. As Tarren played their encore and started to shuffle from the stage, Bob kicked up Rolling home - the audience stood as one and everyone sang and harmonised along. As we go rolling home, sung by a couple of hundred people as Sarah and the festival Flat Foot dancer wandered among the swathes of people handing out little flowers, handmade with the festivals old leaflets. It was stunning. It felt exactly like everything it should. It felt like being back by the folk club fire in Ossett - Scottish Tom singing about the Queen of Hearts baking tarts, or cholesterol, Ian and Elaine giggling in the corner playing guitar and fiddle, Mel and Bill smiling and playing squeeze box and guitar. All these things mean something very specific Beth, but everyone has an Ossett Folk Club, their own Scottish Tom or Mel and Bill. Home. Everyone has their folky home and Derby made it feel just like whatever your version of your folk home is - whether that be an attic room in some pub in Sheffield, smelling a bit like damp and real ale, or the local miners welfare where a guy that actually remembers the pits sings about the days he spent in the dark. Impossible to put into words the fullness of these feelings - all from one festival organiser choosing to sing one last goodbye song. Thank you Bob, and thank you Derby Folk. We hope to see you again next year.
Love, Harmonies, Cwtch,
Kootch x