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Great British Folk Festival

Venue: Butlins
Town: Skegness
Date: 2nd-4th December
Website: http://www.bigweekends.com

Sunday

Steve Tilston's whimsical style was a great way to finish and sort of brought the session full circle. Though different in sound to Peggy & PJ his songs have a similar respectful feel to them, they are played as though they matter for their own sake and not just to convey an emotion or an event.

Tilston had to cut his set short, which was a bit of a pain as you felt that there was so much more that he wanted to give, but it wasn't to be, even so when he was joined by Peggy and PJ for the finale, there was a beaming smile right across his face.

By the time all of Fairport Connections had left the stage, the session had been running for close to three hours and that was with tracks trimmed out, even so, it never felt to long. I'm a big fans of sessions like this with good musicians throughout.

Fairport Connections over run meant that The Churchfitters were very late getting started, as Centre Stage was the only one of the two major venues running during the afternoon this might not have had an impact, but JAKS was running an open mic session and I'd arranged to catch up with a duo, Steve Hicks and Lynne Goulbourne, to see their set. It would mean that I'd only catch the minority of The Churchfitters set, but them's the breaks.

The crew do a good job of turning the stage around from Fairport Connections so it's not too long before music fill the Centre Stage once again. Breton based, The Churchfitters have got an Irish sound that has a slight, 'gone native' having played over a thousand gigs in France, not that they don't spend time gigging over here on a regular basis.

I didn't feel the band had hit the ground running, it seemed to take a little while for the band to get into their stride, but once they had, you got the impression of a band that had a bit of a jazzer approach to their material as various members of the band slipped short solos into the interludes between verses.

I slip away to head off to JAKS, which happens to be awash with luthiers. Brian Eastwood, who was running the Open Mic had made and provided the guitars that were being used as the backdrop for the event. Weird and wonderful looking, all genuine hand built guitars really added to the sense of occasion over at the Open Mic. If you hadn't brought your own, that was ok at there were a couple of loaners available.

The other luthier was the man I'd come to see, Steve Hicks, performing with one of his own creations and I have to say, it sounded incredible, as did the singing of Lynne Goulbourne, there was a real spiritual quality to her vocal and you got the feeling that she was almost absorbed by the song as she delivered it.

I guess there is no better advert for one of your guitars than being able to show people what it's capable of doing and Steve Hicks certainly knows his way around. Lynne And Steve played a song each separately before coming together for a number. It wasn't long before they were being called back to sing once more. I thoroughly enjoyed it, great performance from the pair of them, but oh the sound of that guitar.

That pretty much brought the evening to close, time to grab some food and catch up with the rest of the team and prepare for the evening session. The roast beef was spot on and there was plenty of it, which was good as it was the first food since, an admittedly late breakfast.

The first act of the evening was a choice between Jacqui McShee's Pentangle and Bristolian singer/songwriter, Jane Taylor. Jane Taylor is a genuine phenomenon as a singer/songwriter, not only for her immense song writing talent, but also because she has really come to symbolise what can be achieved is an artist also has the ability to push themselves, not a route suitable for everyone, but for Jane it's definitely paid dividends. I've see Jacqui McShee's Pentangle before and to be honest I'm not in that frame of mind.

Jane Taylor, financed her first album from her fan base before that became a common thing to do. To get gigs and radio appearances, she sent off cds and asked, I'd like to know how she phrased her letters/emails because it really brought in some great gigs and radio.

There's issues with the sound check that are long enough to get people murmuring, consequently when Jane comes on she's got to work that little bit harder to get the show going. The early part of her set feels a bit flat because of it, then you feel the audience engage and from there it picked up.

Jane draws predominantly on songs from, "Compass" and her new live album, which gets the on stage plugs, but there's still time for a number of the best songs from the preceding album, "Montpelier".

Jane is supported by what appears to be an incredible band of musicians. It's a set with great depth and top draw playing. It's easy to see why she's made the breakthroughs that she has. I really enjoyed the performance and hope to see a lot more from her in the future. She gives her new single, "Oh December" a plug and then it's over, well except for the long queue at the merch desk.

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