Saturday
Zoe Wren had queued up to get a turn up and play slot in the Club Tent the night before and is also taking part in the Hub Band Project. As luck would have it, she was fortunate enough to get a slot just after Brian McNeill's performance. Brian recognizes talent when he sees it and offers Zoe a slot on the Session, it may only be two songs, but it's more than enough to mesmerize the audience.
Just before she starts, attention is drawn to her pretty spectacular set of wellies, which manage to draw their own small round of applause. I was lucky enough to see Zoe Wren in the Club Tent the night before and this is very much a bonus for me. More importantly it's a real bonus for Zoe as it allowed her to get heard by a bigger audience and she did herself proud. I did mention this in the Friday piece, but it's worth repeating, if you're reading this before the 31st of October 2014, you can get a free track from Zoe, along with 17 others from www.fatea-showcase-sessions.co.uk
It is said in the folk world that apart from your first band, you have to be in more than one band, something that is becoming essential to be a viable full time musician. All three, yes another trio, members of the next band also perform elsewhere, but in this formation, Rosie Hood, Matt Quinn and Jamie Roberts are, the Dovetail Trio.
One thing becomes very obvious, very fast, here is a trio that have got strong harmonies, both accompanied by their instruments, guitar and concertina, and performing accapella, they have a really powerful and dramatic balance across their voices. I'm really pleased that I'm going to get a taster of their work and it's suitably impressive, as it makes my three o'clock choice that bit easier.
They have a sound that is firmly rooted in the tradition, but like anything with good roots and the energy to feed ideas they have an ability to bloom with their arrangements and feel like they are adding to folk's big picture.
Change over's at The Session are supremely quick, the advantage of having a team that know what they're doing, but this one was almost lightning fast, allowing the Dovetail Trio, to quit this joint and slide down to the Den for their next appearance.
As it is, they are followed on stage by another artist playing the Den later, Raevennan Husbandes, who describes herself as, 'Afrocentric quirky beatnik songbird, buster of shapes, lover of tea & cake, prolific letter writer'. The first thing you notice about her is her hair, a mass of blond curls, but that's only scat seconds before you hear her voice and that coiffure heads to the back of your mind.
Like many of the artists at the Brian McNeill Session, she's performing with just her guitar, but has a band with her for her full set and one for which this is proving to be quite an advert. Raevennan Husbandes was on the verge of a breakthrough back in 2010, when serious illness put paid to her burgeoning career.
Her music has been an important part of her recovery and whilst now firing on all cylinders she has been careful not to do too much. Her material does reflect the highs and lows of the last few years, but the key message seems to be enjoy life whilst you've got it as you can never be sure when it's all going to change.
Her two songs are a great advert for her full band appearance with a far longer set at the Den later on. I've got time to check the programme whilst the stage is being reset and discover I'm not going to be able to make it. Subsequently I discover that she had been joined on stage by Tracey Browne, damn!
It's been said that you should never meet your heroes, just in case they either don't live up to expectation or you end up making a tongue tied idiot of yourself in front of them. The fact that Brian is able to introduce the next act, would show the latter isn't the case. The big beaming smile on his face would suggest that the first one doesn't apply either.
David Bromberg is a multi-instrumentalist ,super collaborator whose CV reads like a who's who of the extended folk and blues world after taking a musical sabbatical, he came back reinvigorated during the naughties and rekindled a music partnership with another, multi-instrumentalist, super collaborator producer, Larry Campbell.
Effectively they deliver a short master class in what looks like effortless performance, but the reaction of the musicians stood around me would suggest it was anything but as easy as it looked. Like many performers at the session, David and Larry are also playing a full set today, but there's is over on Stage 1.
As a duo their weapon of choice is guitar, taking it in turns to be the featured player, but the duo soon becomes a duo when the smiling Brian McNeill joins them and they all reach for the fiddle. It's time for a waltz tune and the tune is question is the traditional piece "Midnight On The Water", a tune that Bromberg has not only record, but also named an album after.
If I'm honest I sort of wanted a fiddle war, having three players of this quality potentially riffing around a tune well... That said it was equally stunning to hear that quality put into collaboration, it was one of those, you had to be there moments.
Unfortunately Bromberg and Campbell had to be elsewhere and the session has a habit of marching on. We all knew that we'd seen something special and Brian was as pleased as punch to have been part of it.