Beverley Folk Festival - Sunday
Beverley was buzzing with activity around town during Sunday lunchtime. Whilst dance teams drenched the market square with colour and vibrancy and Rachel Harrington provided advice and inspiration to young songwriters over at the Priory, the other Rachel of the Unthank variety was conducting a Q&A in the Club Room over in the Leisure Complex, where the room had filled with festival goers curious to know a little more about the Northumbrian siblings and their Southern chums. They answered questions candidly and succinctly and performed requests at the drop of a hat.
Although Waterson:Carthy returned to the Main Stage for their second set of the weekend during which they performed probably the highlight of the festival so far with Lal Waterson's "Some Old Salty", Sunday really belonged to four musicians who have worked extensively in various guises over the years, appearing in such outfits as Fairport Convention, Hedgehog Pie and Dando Shaft as well as with the likes of Bert Jansch, to name but a few. It was in the guise of Whippersnapper that these musicians gelled and excelled and subsequently became one of the tightest acoustic combos in folk music history.
Whippersnapper made two outstanding appearances at the festival, during the afternoon on the Main Stage and later in the evening just after a surprise appearance by Zimbabwe's Black Umfolosi, who made a welcome return to Beverley. I had personally given up any hope of seeing the original line up of Whippersnapper ever again after Swarb left the band in the Nineties. A certain obituary in the telegraph made it almost a certainty that this quartet would go down in the annals of folk history as a footnote of good memories. Major surgery and fixed differences as well as a miraculous resurrection from the dead, with no small measure of determination from the organisers of this festival, saw the re-emergence of Whippersnapper in all it's former glory. I was almost ready to comment predictably on how the ensuing time span has manifested itself in chronic hair loss but in the case of Chris Leslie, the years have apparently been favourable with his Rapunzel-like locks.
Much of the repertoire has been preserved in a handful of albums, but it is in their live performance where Whippersnapper excel. No one musician takes the lead, rather they divvy out the songs democratically and each takes his turn to allow the focus to be turned on them. Dempsey brings a plaintive air to beautiful songs such as "The Maid of Coolmore", "Pride of Kildare" and Sandy Denny's astonishingly beautiful "One Way Donkey Ride"; whilst Jenkins provides a much more contemporary feel to "Romanitza" and "Downtown Rodeo". Leslie and Swarb come into their own not so much as singers but as consummate musicians with a pair of fiddles that were just made to play together like veritable siblings. Their two sets were completely different save for a repeat of "No More" as a final encore, which may suggest they were trying to tell us something. I hope not, but we'll have to wait and see.
So called 'novelty' acts can only really survive with folk audiences if they combine tasteful humour with astonishing musical virtuosity. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain excel equally in both areas and performed a superb closing set on Sunday night. Nothing is safe from their virtuoso lampooning, whether it be the soul of Otis Redding's "Too Hard to Handle", the wild and windy warbling of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" or the king of the four stringed plank himself George Formby, whose "Leaning on a Lamp Post" is given an itinerant Klezmorim sort of treatment, all important ingredients to help bring this delightful little festival to a successful climax.
This wander through the festival weekend was brought to you by Allan Wilkinson