Thursday
Closing the Club Tent on the night was the Paul McKenna Band. I've seen most of the musicians in the Paul McKenna band play, but never all five in the same place before, so having followed the band for years, I'm finally getting to see them play live.
That's partly because they fall into Irn Bru band syndrome, big in Scotland, struggles to get gigs south of the border and there's no reason for it that I can see. If they can get decent tours of Canada, the US, Germany etc, what's wrong with promoters in England, rant over.
The band released their second album, "Stem The Tide" earlier in the year, considerably adding to the momentum they've been generating since their first album "Between Two Worlds" and extensive touring.
You could feel something in the air and it wasn't the sweat that had come off Hobo Jones & The Junkyard Dogs, something special was going to happen and we weren't going to be disappointed, From the opening note of "P for Paddy", you knew they were going to hit every mark.
There were a lot of people in the audience that were here for this band, including a someone that managed to fit in a bit of vogueing to the faster songs, strange.
The band drew on both of their albums, mixing in great tunes, with songs of social conscience as well as those with a more emotional based content. For me one of the jewels in the crown on the night was "Dreams Of Darien", about the failed attempt to establish a Scottish Utopia in central America that virtually bankrupted the country. This was matched by "The Silent Majority" a rebuke to those that just watch evil happening rather than standing up and being counted. Both songs were performed with real passion and in the case of the latter, you could feel the raw emotion of the song coming through.
If that makes it sound like the set was a little down, far from it. The Paul McKenna are real entertainers. If the crowd weren't already on their feet they would have been compelled to be so. This was a rip roaring end to the night and one of the best Thursday's I can remember, now that's how to start a festival.
Time for a cider(the first in the official festival tankard) and a catch up with the rest of the Fatea team, to see how their nights have gone. For me it's been a great start.