Seventeen months is a long time. It was March 2020 when we last set foot in the Queen's Hall to enjoy live music. It was a glorious, memorable occasion then, with the excellent "Bird In The Belly" Travelling up from Sussex to be the headline act. I don't think anyone present that night fully realised what would follow. Lockdowns. Masks. Isolation. Fear. Vaccines. It's a lot to take on board and a lot to forget about. As readers can see by the increasing gaps between Blog postings here, I was among those who began to lose heart. I carried on doing the Radio shows-although not from the Anker Radio studios. Every one of them since March 2020 was recorded at home.( And continues to be so). Other than that, it felt that as far as music was concerned, there wasn't much to diarise or write about. Now the ice is broken, maybe I'll get back into the blogging habit more often.
So much has changed since that night. Many of us have been on painful and challenging personal journeys. For some of us it feels as if it may be time to try to approach normality again. For others it is still too soon. So it was with some apprehension that most of us approached the re-opening of Nuneaton Folk Club last night. An added burden was that always being the first in the month, we would be the FIRST Folk Club in the area to re-open and one of the first indoor venues to reconvene. That felt like quite a responsibility to be carrying. Maybe others will find it easier now we've kick-started the whole thing off again?
The room had changed. Rich Burlingham had been very busy throughout Lockdown(s) with a proactive revamp of the venue. New bar, new toilets, new carpet, new interior from the auditorium to the stage. New sound deck (removed and sited upstairs in a gallery). New tech crew-and what a good job Ross and Jack made of it too, given that dealing with Folkies was a whole new ball game for them. I liked the new, smaller tables. It meant that there was natural social distancing and the new layout afforded more room to get around. We did not have a raffle but went for a "jug collection" instead. Which went well. A few potential raffle prizes had appeared anyway but I expect we'll see them at Beduff next week?
We anticipated a lower than usual turnout, and in that respect we were correct. (Good job we rearranged the advertised Mike Reinstein appearance and made it a home grown night instead?). There were things that went well last night and things that can be improved, especially as the Guests become more famous, the attendances rise and the Covid situation becomes clearer. The Air conditioning caused discomfort to some and was set too low. The Smoke machine we can definitely do without. Having spent all night compering and singing I woke up this morning with a cough, In the current climate that's a bit worrying! (I'll test!). Some people were too cold, but proper ventilation is currently the key to managing health and safety indoors. Personally I'd prefer circulating air indoors to being trapped in a hot, sweaty claustrophobic atmosphere which is a perfect environment for encouraging aerial transmission of virus spores. The World Health Authority and our own NHS agrees with me. We'll sort it for next month.
But the key thing of course, was the music. Having rearranged Mike's gig, it fell to House Band Nunc to try to link the entertainment and to take on board the second half. Instead of a procession of floor spots first half we decided to try out warming our audience up (see what I did there?) with some longer feature sets. Cameos by Nigel Ward and Des Patalong preceded a couple of half hour slots from Adam Wilson and Craig Sunderland respectively.
Nunc started with a shaky version of "How Long Blues," but once under way it steadied and adjusted to a racier tempo. The train (it's a railway song) effectively got up a head of steam and began to move. We followed with a second railway song "Vigilante Man," and finished our opener with the Richard and Linda Thompson classic "Down Where The Drunkards Roll." It was during this song that I first heard the audience singing, repeating the last line at the end of each verse. I confess, it got me quite emotional. I think I shouted over the P.A. something like "Hey! We're in a Folk Club again! And we're singing together. "
Cov kid Nigel Ward boldly followed. He gave us some songs and tunes from his new CD "Coventry Kid (and other stories)." This included "Coventrated," a dramatic song about the November Blitz. Nigel got out the fiddle to finish and delivered a rousing set of tunes which got feet tapping and the odd sedate table thumping going on as we romped along to a finish with a flourish. Stirring stuff.
Des Patalong, rarely backward in coming forward, had stepped into the breach at late notice, kindly deputising for the billed Steve Bentley and Andrew Wrigglesworth. Des was next up on stage and he looked comfortable as he launched into a series of songs. It was as if he'd never been away. Des has a voice which really does not need a P.A. to project. His sonorous tones filled the room and he too got the audience singing.
The first of our two longer sets followed that. An NFC regular, Adam Wilson did some songs from his latest album. By request, (my fault!), he did "Old Man," and "Heart of Gold." This was probably very selfish of me to ask for these, but no-one I know locally has the vocal range to deliver those songs live with anything like his authenticity. It probably skewed his set list. (Oops!) I was humbled to hear him do "The Boy On The Beach," which we co-wrote together. First time I'd heard it "live."
Adam was a tough act to follow, but 'taking us up to the break' as it were, up stepped Craig Sunderland. The combination of Craig's fine voice, his ingenious musical arrangements and his superb guitar playing is always a highlight. He takes traditional music and makes it relatable. One of the attributes of Folk songs is that their originators did not mind having a dig at what they felt was wrong. So with a few slight amendments, many of the older songs are still relevant. Craig also kindly invited me to join him in a rendition of the Rod Felton classic "Curly." We were (are) both admirers of the greatly missed Roddie's work. So it was an honour to mumble my way through the choruses as Craig delivered his own unique arrangement. The Old Rascal himself would have loved it!
Nunc completed the second half with a selection of their repertoire. Reduced to a four piece, we still managed to rip through "When Love Comes to Town" and "Copperhead Road" with some spirit. Flossy was in particularly fine voice-her soaring vocals in of "Guilty", "Landslide" and "Angel of Montgomery" were particularly well received. We finished with "Dark End of The Street," a fairly new addition but one which is a personal favourite. As an encore we reprised "Bring It On Home," which seemed particularly apt given the occasion.
In conclusion, despite the frankly terrifying "tally ho" spirit of certain cavalier politicians and scientists, the Pandemic is NOT over, and we are not yet out of the woods. Nor will we ever be until people as a whole act more sensibly, and the vaccination programmes world wide are more consistent and reliable. We remain disunited as a nation with confusing ever-changing Governmental travel advice changing daily. We are too easily swayed by mass sporting events badged nefariously as "test events." There are those deniers who would like us all to believe that all is now somehow magically "disappeared." Returning to a semblance of normality is undeniably an attractive prospect. Those of us involved in the Entertainment sector must do our bit and try to move things on sensibly and safely.
