Reviews
Event: Bournemouth Folk Festival
Venue: BIC
Town: Bournemouth
Date: 12th March
Website:
http://www.bournemouthfolkfestival.co.uk/
March the 12th saw the inaugural Bournemouth Folk Festival and a damned fine addition it is to the festival scene it is to.
For many it now provides a new start for the festival season. If you're thinking that the start of March is a tad early for the start of the festival season, fear not, it's pretty much all inside the multi-stage venue that is the BIC in Bournemouth.
I say pretty much all inside, the Morris sides had to go outside and dance on the terrace, but fortunately it was a sunny day, if a little cold, but the dancing soon took the blue out of the cheeks. It had been a good day for dancing in Bournemouth, there had been an attempt at the world silent conga record earlier in the day.
For a one day festival, Bournemouth packed an awful lot in. On the music side there was a good balance between local and visiting acts, with the latter dominating the mainstage and the former stage two. This was enhanced by two top draw workshops and an ongoing session in one of the two bars available to the festival.
The bars themselves had been introduced to the concept of real ale out of a cask, this is a folk festival after all and to their credit, the folkies drank the real ale dry.
Dance was also well supported during the festival. Not only were three Morris sides present, but for the evening, rows of chairs had been cleared away from the mainstage to make a dancefloor as Saturday night was very much more geared to getting up and having a good time, rather than the more songwriter aspects of the afternoon.
Even then if you were looking somewhere to go for a less energetic time, there were still seats and tables around the edge or you could slink off to one of the other stages to take in the ambience there. In short from the moment it kicked off to the final kick off the night there was something happening, all you had to do is keep up
My usual method of operation at a festival is to run around like a demented thing and try and take in as much as I can. I thought I'd try something different at Bournemouth Folk Festival and pretty much set up camp at the mainstage.
One of the main reasons behind the logic was that was where most of the acts that I'd not seen in a while or at all were going to be playing. Stage Two was starting off with a number of more local acts, all of which would be a welcome addition to many a festival and indeed many of them have.
Bob Burke, Victor Chetcuti and Derek Burgess & Kitty Vernon had the honour of kicking the festival on Stage Two, the honour on the Mainstage going to Chester based duo, The Jaywalkers. Consisting of Jay Bradberry & Michael Giverin the duo had driven down from home on the day, but if they hadn't confessed, you would never have been able to gauge it from the performance.
The Jaywalkers are a band that have until now slipped beneath my musical radar so I really had no idea what to expect. As the name implies, they started off in one of the American folk genres, bluegrass, but more recently they have been drawn to their more native folk music and as with the Trans-Atlantic Sessions finding a good deal of commonality between the two.
Michael Giverin provided most of the between song banter, identifying the history of the songs and explaining how they found their way into their set list. He also showed himself to be something pretty special when it came to the mandolin with some pretty good instrumentals and breaks.
Jay Bradberry switched between guitar and fiddle as well as providing lead vocal duties. Dressed in a fifties style country dress without pockets, she occasionally found herself turning Michael Giverin into her plectrum roadie, still haven't worked out what's wrong with a little bit of blu-tack.
It was a good start to the first Bournemouth Folk Festival, Jay Bradberry delivered a vocal that was at times lush and velvet, but also one that took on the emotional qualities when required. It also found a more American accent when falling back to the bluegrass numbers.
I may not have been aware of The Jaywalkers before the festival, I certainly was after. They were also the only act that were going to be playing both stages during the course of the festival having been scheduled in for an evening slot on the other stage, I'm tempted to give them another go.
Time for the first change of the afternoon, though only moving from a duo to a solo artist, singer songwriter and slide guitarist Johnny Dickinson, the soundcrew still need to be slick in order to keep the event to time and they do a good job, the change is smooth and Dickinson positions himself ready to become the second artist to play.
Johnny Dickinson, does highlight the one real problem with a spring festival, we're still in the season of cold, flu and chest infections. When he's speaking it's obvious that his voice is not at it's best, somehow he manages to hide it whilst he's singing.
Arguably, Dickinson is better known for his guitar dynamics than he is for his vocal repertoire, it gives him plenty of opportunities to let his instrument to do the talking and it talks in many different languages, as he blends in influences from around the globe into quite well known tunes.
When he does sing it's mainly songs with a darker edge that really as much on the words as the delivery to portray some of the less savoury aspects of the human condition. Not necessarily graphic in their description, but absolutely clear in intent. That's not to detract from the vocal, just to accept there are some songs that can't help but be driven by the narrative.
It was only when he was giving his throat a good clear out, that I remembered he would be delivering a slide guitar workshop later in the day, I keep my fingers crossed that this isn't taking too much of a toll.
It turns out to be one heck of a set, if it wasn't for the cracking voice and the occasional frog in the throat on the between set banter, you probably wouldn't have clocked how much he was protecting his voice. It was a good free ranging set that pretty much had something for everyone.
Time for the soundcrew to do their magic again. It's another relatively short change over, pretty much lose the chair and move from a singer-songwriter that prefers playing the guitar sat down to one that prefers playing standing up. Okay, there's more to it than that and the team do a good job.