Now We Are Two!
Second Birthday Performer's Night and What's Up Next?
Well, two years on from our humble beginnings we celebrated in fine style with a performer's night graced by many of our regular performers and a good night was had by one and all.
Next up is another performer's night on 3rd February so do come along and sing, play, chat and enjoy!
Pilgrim’s Way get the new year off to a fine start
6th January - Pilgrim's Way
A brilliant concert by Pilgrim's Way got us off to a great start this year. Lucy Wright is a fine singer with power and feeling in her voice. Tom Kitching and Edwin Beasant are both superb musicians playing fiddle, mandolin, melodeon and guitar. Together they are quite magnificent with great songs and tunes along with a bright and engaging performance. Great stuff.
Support was provided by Pete, Simeon, Ray and Barry and Ed who all reminded us of the quality and variety that marks our regular performer's nights and will continue to be the mainstay of our club over the coming year.
The raffle too continued in fine style with Sheila claiming a rather lovely wooly hat, the first in the series of "Christmas presents I wish my mum hadn't bought"!
There is lots to look forward to over the coming months so do have a look at the dates section for the programme details. Highlights will certainly be the concert at the Dovehouse theatre and concerts from Lucy Ward and Cara Luft. But first we have our second birthday on 20th January when we will celebrate with a performer's night where all comers are very welcome. Rumour has it that Dave may make his long awaited return after months of grappling with his new fatherhood duties!
Pilgrims Way start our new year programme
Next up - 6th January - Pilgrims Way
Pilgrims Way
We start the new year with a concert from the excellent three piece band Pilgrims Way. Playing their own particular brand of Folk music, they were brought together by a series of chance meetings at sessions around the North West of England, bonding over red hair and a shared love of traditional music, they have been shaking up assorted kitchens, public houses and folk venues ever since.
Lucy Wright is a fine singer with a captivating voice. She is strongly influenced by the Irish style but also lists Dolly Parton and Siberian music in her influences. Tom Kitching is one of the best fiddle players on the scene today and Edwin Beasant completes the lineup with his excellent guitar and melodeon playing.
This band combine great songs and tunes with engaging and upbeat performance and they are sure to get the new year off to a brilliant start.
Tickets are available on the door for just £5.
The Big Christmas Sing
16th December - The Big Christmas Sing featuring Thrupp'ny Bits Festive Fayre
Our last meeting of the year was just great fun with crackers, jokes, silly hats and great songs. Thrupp'ny Bit gave us a real treat with their Festive Fayre which featured a wonderful mix of hilarious and serious festive songs, all performed with their special brand of charm and humour. This was a great way to celebrate the last weekend before Christmas. We also had performances from Ric, Pete, Simon, Nigel, Ralph, Simeon, Marten, Betty, Barry and Ed, and Laura who had us all laughing at Granny being run over by a reindeer.
We were treated to cracker jokes being read out throughout the evening and the raffle did not disappoint with Simeon claiming the novelty boxers and musical tie combo. He has promised us a photo (well, I think that's what he said!).
Betty produced her Mary Poppins bag and everyone was weilding a shaky bangy instrument as we finally launched into Jingle Bells and all that stuff. Great fun!
We'll do it all again next year!
Sunjay Brayne Feature Night – 2nd December
Sunjay Brayne - a special talent
- Sunjay Brayne
Well, where do I begin? What a fabulous evening of entertainment we had on Friday at our latest meeting. The quality and variety of performances continues to astound but we've still got our much valued warm environment where new performer's feel welcome to make a debut.
Our feature spot was performed by BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award finalist Sunjay Brayne. This is a young man with an extraordinary talent. He is an amazing guitarist with a great singing voice and a very engaging personality. His fingers flew around the fretboard but this was no flashy guitar exhibition, it was a full and rounded performance which was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. There is no doubt that Sunjay has something a bit special and the potential to go a long way in his musical career. We will all be watching for the results of the award in February.
Whilst Sunjay was the stand out performer of the evening there was much more going on too! The first half included some fine songs and a few good laughs from Pete, stories from Finbar and an excellent debut performance from Laura. What a great voice.
Roger (Sunjay's dad) did a great spot including a Fred Wedlock song that took me back to my early days in Bristol. Ed was then accompanied by Maeve who played flute beautifully invoking a collective warm sigh around the room. Lovely stuff.
Dave Fry ended the first half in great style including a fine performance of Galway to Graceland that perfectly captured that balance of sadness and humour so brilliantly crafted into the song.
And so to the raffle ...
I have always thought that a raffle was a purely random mechanism but I am now beginning to think that there is some dark art around buying raffle tickets that three of our members are becoming expert at! We haven't seen Derek and Tess for a few weeks but their return was immediately celebrated by Derek swooping to claim the mulled wine donated by Ray. How does he do it? Marten, who is now established as apprentice raffle expert, continued his fine run of form by adding the jelly beans to his growing collection of chocolates and Christmas decorations. But, the undisputed king of the raffle, Julian, was about to strike once again! The penultimate Christmas prize was revealed in all of its glory to be a magnificent Christmas tree hat complete with flashing Christmas lights and modeled by Sue B. Julian proudly took both his wife and the hat home to add to the inflatable snowman won last time. No, really, how does he do it?!!
Sunjay started the second half with a brilliant 30 minute spot. It was a big ask for Diane to "follow that" but she pulled it off with two
fine songs. Marten gave us another fine slice of his poetry and Susan sang a lovely, humorous song. There had been several reference to my Dougie spot during the evening and Dave returned to answer all the talk about "that Maclean character" with a great performance of American Pie! With everyone singing so loud Dave barely needed to join in himself!
The evening was all but over but we could not let Sunjay go without an encore performance to finish the night. I managed to resist saying this all
night but I can't stop myself any more ... Sunjay Brayne - remember that name!