Nothing says British summer like a garden party. And rain. Sigh. Did someone say Kootch are playing outdoors?
Although in all honesty we managed to narrowly avoid the rain - like a scene from The Matrix - dodging each individual drop in slow motion. We thought that having wooden instruments was bad. Poor Katy has one made from hair. Slight bit of humidity and her bow had a do that Tom Jones would be envious of.
Beth and Dean arrived to find Katy and Ian already parked up - the absolutely legends managing to make it all the way from Shrewsbury Festival before Dean and Beth had managed to make it down the road an hour or so. Impressive. #1 fan, and coincidentally Beth’s mum, was also already there. Thanks Beth’s mum. So was her boyfriend - Kev. Moment of silence for Kev please - being dragged along to most Kootch shenanigans with not a single biological reason for being there. Thanks Kev. You hero.
As the curator of the club, Geoff Noble kicked the afternoon off. Geoff has been playing the folk game for years and you can tell - not because he was wearing socks and sandals - but because of his vast repertoire of songs. Throughout the day, Geoff often joined other acts on stage to provide extra accompaniment or some vocal harmonies.
Next to take the stage was Liz Wall. There is so much to say about Liz I think it would be difficult to write it in one blog. We have seen Liz a couple of times at the club and she is just amazing. Liz’s beautiful voice almost distracts from her incredible musicianship, which in turn distracts from her brilliant wordsmithery. All of it combined creates this beautiful togetherness, soft, beautiful and the only downside is we only got twenty minutes to listen to her when we wanted all day! Check her out, follow her, you will not be disappointed.
And now for something completely different - Two blokes. Don’t worry - the blog writer hasn’t lost their memory - that’s the name of the duo! Anyway, there used to be three of them. Who knows what the band was called back then?! Probably Two Blokes (Trio). That would be our best guess. The two sing lovely close harmonies of often very amusing songs. Entertaining chorus songs that the whole garden could sing along to.
Chris Payne then entertained us for 20 minutes. He did very well considering the ominous clouds that had just started to blow in. There were some questions as to whether the afternoon would continue. It would have been a shame as the level of talent so far was fantastic - and the audience agreed.
Luckily - the rain soon passed and we were able to lower the standards for the performers for the afternoon. We had a great time as always. Dean met a lady in the bar that had seen us at Cleckheaton Folk Festival a couple of times. We weren’t sure if she was there for us, or the amazing food, so we’re gunna say both. She was there for both.
Next up was the immensely talented Andy Castle. Every now and then you stumble across performers that mean every single word they sing - Andy is one such man. Vocally reminiscent of Daniel Johnston - and there are no guitar players that we can liken him to, but just trust us that he was good.
Rosie Faith. Just wow. With powerful hair comes a powerful voice. Again, another talented female artist where both her vocals and musicianship were on par. Rosie has just started to travel around again and pick up where she left off, gig-wise, catch her if you can.
Now, when we are plugged in, there is always a soft spot in our hearts for the sound technicians/engineers. Chip, the soundman, did a cracking job of everyone’s sound. In classic soundman style, he forgoed what looked like an excellent curry to do our sound check. It would seem that we meet many soundmen that are also talented musicians themselves and Chip took to the stage. Chip gave an amazing rendition of The Galaxy Song - Beth is a massive NERD so sang along glady from the audience.
There was just one duo left - Sue & Bob. Sadly we had to leave at this point and were busily packing up the frankly obscene amount of instruments we now take to a show. What we can say is that they were blummin’ fab and had the audience singing along.
We realise this is a long blog, with very few of the amazing puns and jokes we know you all LOVE. So thank you if you have made it this far. Burton is an ace little folk club. They put on guest nights but also Geoff and Jan host a lovely, welcoming singaround. We can confirm that this is not one of those cliqué clubs - and you are made to feel at home straight away. From the two times that we have been there, there is also the benefit of seeing some top class people perform. We would highly recommend.
Keep an eye on the website and Facebook for some updates for the Derby Folk Festival Fringe (Waterfall stage) and another gig on the same morning! We are just waiting on some confirmation of exact times, but hope to see you there.
Love, Harmonies, Cwtch,
Kootch x