Some Folk Clubs close
during August because of the holidays or because some of their regulars are
away at Festivals. Local ones including NFC don't. Last August, Winter
Wilson (understandably!) pulled them in at The Crown and last Wednesday (3rd August) we had a good crowd turn up again, to see two talented home-grown
Warwickshire-based acts share the Guest Spot.
The first half
Feature set came from Nuneaton duo KC Jones, regular visitors to the
club. Karen's fine voice and Colin's excellent guitar work combined
to give us a nice selection of songs. Some of their own such as
“Hey!” and “The Ivory Battle” and some nice singalong covers including a Mary Black Song and a spirited version of “Where Have All
The Flowers Gone?” to round off the First Half.
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| K.C. Jones |
Our second guest
spot saw the night finished off with two encores from Chris Tobin. He had to travel a little further, but his papers were all in order and he managed to cross the M69 without challenge. Chris is a good guitarist with a lot of nifty tricks and a fine
voice. His carefully crafted arrangements really got our audience
singing and tapping their feet. He had so many requests he couldn't
fit them all in!
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| Mr Tobin in full song |
Nunc (alsa minus the holidaying John Kearney) had opened the first half with “ 'T'was On an April
Morning," and “All The Good Times.”
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| Nunc |
Our very own Sound man Matt Mallen Allen then
followed us, with “Down Where The Drunkards Roll " and one of his own.
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| Matt Mallen Allen. A Sound Man. |
Next up was Max
Wright, showing off the new guitar which he'd purchased in York earlier in the week. “ This
Land is Your Land” went down well, with the audience joining in with the
choruses enthusiastically.
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| That's a lovely machine, Max! |
Amelia Roberts made her debut next, with
two of her own songs. A voice which (in the nicest possible sense)
was difficult to pin a label to. Amelia is married to Dan Gascoigne- Talented couple.
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| Amelia Roberts debuts at NFC |
Malc Gurnham had been doing some tinkering with
songs he already does, and he gave us new arrangements of John
Richards's fabulous “Shine On” and “Union Miners Stand
Together.” He also did a moving version of a song about the Aberfan disaster.
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| Malc Gurnham giving it some welly |
I'd been trying
to get Glyn Finch to come along and entertain the NFC crowd since
appearing with him at Drapers and The Twisted Barrel in Coventry. His
unique version of “She Moved Through The Fair” won him some new
friends, and he then added a very competent version of a Skip James song
and one of his own.
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| Glyn Finch gets his head down |
Thrup'nny Bits warmed up for KC Jones with an a cappella trio from the front of house-eschewing all forms of
artificial amplification! This had the added bonus of giving Matt a
chance to crawl round the back of the stage to surreptitiously
replace a dodgy DI battery which had been causing us a bit of concern
earlier on. He thought no-one had spotted him-but he was wrong.
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| Matt is praying that the battery works |
Des Gareth and Barbara had a virtual pop-up shop of CD's with
them and performed three songs from their latest one.
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| Gareth Wyatt leading from the front |
Nunc did “Bring
It On Home” to kick off the second half, and then the raffle saw an
interesting selection of prizes distributed amongst a fairly
satisfied audience.
All in all a very eclectic
evening with all seats filled and standing room only at the back. One of the nicest things about NFC is the number of artistes who come along to support the event even though they don't have a floor spot. For example, noted in the audience and adding their vocal talent to the choruses were Comharsa's Mick Stanley,Maria Barham, Brian Philips, Sue Phipps , George Van Ristell and Joe Roberts.
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| long shot from half way up the room |
Afterwards there were some lovely comments on the Nuneaton Folk Club Facebook Page, but my favourite one came from
two young ladies who were joining us for the first time. They seemed
to be having a whale of time each time I saw them and one of them later confirmed this by
posting “ Amazing Night! Thanks Guys. You were all brilliant.”
Makes it all worthwhile reading stuff like that. I think they'll be back!
