Swanage 2002

Stonking!

Hamish Currie and Dave Phillips' seaside jaunt

So: back to Swanage. A repeat booking at a lovely festival. And once again it didn't disappoint. Beautiful weather, fantastic vibe, and a superb time all round.

And no major scares on the organisation front (at least from my perspective). Open mic session in The White Horse was a total blast - with Martin the Town Crier from St. Albans stealing the show with Old MacDonald's Farm - in Latin. Hic quack, ubi quack... And the mighty Saul Rose on a borrowed melodeon.

The main stage in the evening was great, too. Two fabulous bands - real pros, and such nice people - made my job MCing a real pleasure. (Quite pleased with my one snappy one-liner when one of the audience quipped "We're not all back" to which I said "Listen, pal, some of you weren't all there to begin with").

...and a nice wee session in the B&B to round things off

...and a promise of another repeat booking for 2003! I'm definitely going for he whole weekend next time (but I had been invited to play at Dunstable on Sunday afternoon, and I find it hard to say "no". Having said that, I'm glad I played there, 'cos it was great, too.)

"What a great weekend!"

...says my mate Dave. He continues:

"This year we arrived late Friday afternoon, next year I'm aiming for mid-morning or even the Thursday night.

"Show of Hands were absolutely brilliant! Shall I be picky? I can't. They were superb on every level. Fantastic musicianship - Steve Knightly's vocals and guitar/east european dulcimer thingy and Phil Beer's guitar playing and violin - his use of bottleneck, finger picking and harmonics was staggering and the overall variety in the dynamics of the show was excellent. Must see them again!!

"Token Women were excellent, not my usual sort of band but really enjoyable - George [his son] thought they were "amazing" (which surprised me as I didn't think he'd take to them).

"Flook - Hmm - they were great, for about 30 mins, then , for me, it all blurred and one jig on a tin whistle sounding much like any other ( a bit harsh for such a talented band but .... ). My thoughts are similar for the bodhran solo - amazing for the first 25 - 33% of the overall time. Maybe it was because I was already losing interest or it was a bit late in the set, or 'cos he'd practised a lot of the flashier stuff between numbers. Anyway, I'd certainly see them again as a supporting band but not as the main event.

"Your open mic was good fun, especially the Town Crier singing in Latin. A very varied mix but all enjoyable stuff - the beer was good too.

"Apart from that the weather was fine, almost every pub seemed to have live music, the Morris Men were very colourful; I've never seen so many in one place - at any one time there were 6 dances, 12 sides, taking place along the sea front - (still find it a VERY strange thing to do); the Slovakian Folk Dancers were , well, very Slovakian, the Algerian belly dancers had a lot of belly and the open clog session on the promenade was a joy to behold; plus George and I had a great time bashing the life out of various percussion instruments in the Drum-crazy workshop.

"We never did get to go fishing but I came away with a video (SoH - Live at the Royal Albert Hall) and George got a new skate board - and we saw the steam trains.

"All in all a great weekend - oh and now I can say "When I played at the Swanage Folk Festival ........".