At the weekend Hugh and I ventured to Middlewich, a small canal town in Cheshire which every year hosts the Folk & Boat Festival. We successfully navigated ourselves to a sports field outside the centre which was acting as the weekend’s official campsite. It wasn’t exactly a sea of tents aka Glastonbury, but we had a clean shower block, plus in the morning the local scout troop on hand to fuel us with enormous cups of tea and bacon butties.Saturday night was spent sampling the various delights of the fringe festival. Watching ‘James and the Giant’ perform in a tiny marquee separated from the audience by a canal was slightly surreal. However the added action of narrowboats navigating the lock in front us made for a more memorable hour, JATG’s music being perfectly pleasant and including some singalong opportunities with a few well known covers (Tom Petty, REM) but they were ultimately unremarkable.
Further into town, in the White Horse, was a charming scene straight out of one of favourite movies, ‘Once’. A group of jolly, grizzled out souls belting out traditional melodies on fiddle, accordion, guitar and mandolin, with vocals randomly contributed from various family & friends sitting around them. I wish I’d know the words, the only one I could join in with was ‘Green Green Grass of Home’.
We finished the evening at the Kings Lock, in the company of Cold Flame, who played their way with panache through a bizarre combination of Celtic instrumentals that Kangaroo Moon would be proud of, and 70’s and 80’s rock covers ranging from The Animals, Bob Dylan, The Band and Del Amitri.
We whiled away Sunday morning strolling along the canal and checking out the vintage boats. Then it was time to head to the British Legion for the main event that we travelled down for….
After one of the festival organisers did a turn with her band, we were introduced to Rachel Harrington & Zac Borden who gave us a taste of southern gothic bluegrass. I was captivated, though I know very little about this sort of music except for being a big Gillian Welch fan. One review says that she is "connecting with the ghosts of American folk music" and I can’t really think of a better description. Her songs reminded me of much of the music that features in Jim White's fantastic documentary film, 'Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus'. We picked up her live album “In the Woods” as a souvenir, and I’ll certainly be exploring more of her music.
Andrea Glass gave us a more gentle hour of acoustic songs, her gorgeous melodies and intricate lyrics beguilingly mixed with a down to earth Bolton humour! She did a great cover of Dancing in the Dark and brought a cup of tea on stage with her – brilliant!
Then it was Thea Gilmore’s turn, opening with a captivating solo ‘Old Soul’. This girl needs zero post-production, her distinctive voice crystal clear and resonant. Then Nige & Fluff (on violin) joined her for a surprising cover – Pink’s ‘Get the Party Started’. The rest of the set went by in a whirl, including lush renditions of ‘The Lower Road’, ‘Icarus Wind’ and ‘You and Frank Sinatra’ and a biting, shiver inducing ‘This girl is taking bets’. There was a stomping ‘If you miss me at the back of the bus’ and a stirring ‘Are you Ready?’, a song about fighting for what you believe in, inspired by her friend on the eve of Obama’s victory, where all three leapt off the stage to rehearse the audience beforehand so we could then join in with the refrain ‘We will ride, are you ready?’. And we sang very beautifully, even if I do say so myself ;o)
It was a joyful and memorable afternoon. So much fun we’ve already booked to see Thea again in Chester in December, and I'm sure we'll be back at MFAB next year too!
At the weekend Hugh and I ventured to Middlewich, a small canal town in 
