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Wombwell Mad-Fest

Saturday

The setting for the Wombwell Mad-Fest was the Church Hall tucked around the back of St Michael's Church on the main road through Wombwell. The secluded car park was filled with camper vans, the only real method of camping over the weekend, unless you wanted to bend your tent pegs in the car park concrete. Just over the road is the Wombwell Conservative Club, which played host to the two singaround sessions of the weekend, bridging the gap between the afternoon and evening concerts in the main hall. All pretty close together and not too far from the main town amenities.

Saturday provided the first full day of music which included sets in the afternoon by artists as diverse as Holly Taymar, The Carrivick Sisters, Sarah McDougall and Elbow Jane, whilst the evening concert featured Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts, Kieran Halpin, Rachel Harrington and Zak Borden and Los Pistoleros. Hedley Jones, the festival organiser, almost insists there are no headliners nor support slots in the programme, but that each act is treated equally and takes their place as an integral part of the carefully selected programme. It also doesn't go unnoticed that at a bargain price of just £30 for a weekend ticket, each act costs under £1.50 each. So presumably that's why they call it Wombwell MAD-Fest?

Opening the Saturday afternoon concert with a delightful set of self-penned songs was York-based singer songwriter Holly Taymar, who appears to be just as comfortable opening an afternoon festival concert as closing late night basement bars in York. There's a tangible warmth to a Holly Taymar performance wherever she plays; who appears to be at ease with both folk and jazz audiences alike and who draws from the influences of James Taylor and Carole King. With relative ease, Holly matches her peers measure for measure and the only reason I can think of as to why Holly is still doing opening and support spots around York, is that she is still going through the tiresome process of waiting for people to catch up. Guitar player Carl Hetherington caught up some time ago and the pair make a formidable team as they revealed some of Holly's finest gems such as "Toes", "Home" and "7am".

South Devon siblings Laura and Charlotte Carrivick brought an astonishing level of musicianship to the Wombwell stage on Saturday afternoon with a set of predominantly bluegrass based songs and tunes. When the dobro was added to their fiddle, mandolin and guitar based repertoire, their musical tastes changed and they have subsequently gone on to capture the musical dexterity of bluegrass but place it within the context of their English roots. "The Dartmoor Witches" and "The Flowers She Picked For Jamie" are specifically localised songs from their Devon home, but have a distinct Kentucky bluegrass feel to them. The standard of playing is staggeringly complex for musicians so young, but they deliver the goods as seasoned professionals.

Swedish/Canadian songwriter, Sarah MacDougall was given a rapturous welcome as she took to the Wombwell stage on Saturday afternoon. Accompanied by guitar/dobro player Tim Tweedale, Sarah opened with a set of country-tinged songs starting with "Headed For the Hills" and at one point encouraged the audience to imitate a pack of wolves as a preface to "Cry Wolf". The audience was in the mood to oblige, which may have had the rest of Wombwell wondering what on earth was going on in their local community hall. The mixture of country tales with a folk sensibility, seasoned with a Scandinavian sense of melancholy and kitted out in a distinctly Woody Guthrie wardrobe, Sarah proved to be every bit the folk troubadour we initially anticipated.

Merseyside's Elbow Jane may well have the look of a re-formed boy band, and their music could very easily lean more towards the pop side of folk, but as a tight acoustic band with infectious melodies and an abundance of warmth in the personality stakes, this band come in very definitely at second to none. Playing a selection of songs from their '3 Side Island' album, preceded by an explanation that their stomping ground of Ellesmere Port (a peninsula - therefore an island with just three sides), the band launched into the anthemic “Long May You Stand” with its new country CMT feel good delivery and continued with a string of timeless classics such as Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years", George Harrison's "Something" and an encore of the enduring McGuinness Flint number, "When I'm Dead and Gone".