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Maverick Festival

Venue: Easton Farm Park
Town: Suffolk
Date: 30th June
Words & Pictures:David Hughes
http://threechordsandthetruthuk.blogspot.co.uk/

More time has been spent in the Peacock Café on previous Maverick visits but this year only two artists were witnessed, although when you are in the presence of the contrasting styles of Otis Gibbs and Gretchen Peters for nearly two hours you know the festival organisers are doing something right. The reputation of Otis Gibbs as the epitome of the travelling American folk singer continues to grow as he undertakes his annual extensive jaunt around theses isles leaving memories of real life tales recounted in the spoken and sung word sealed with his humble signature of 'thanks for giving a damn.' As usual he opens with 'Small Town Saturday Night' and closes with the spine tingling 'Karluv Most' the Czech name for Prague's landmark Charles Bridge. In between Otis pays tribute to a late friend in 'Something More' and introduces the audience to a couple of songs from his new album 'Harder Than Hammered Hell'. As he left the packed Peacock Café stage to a rousing applause, this was not to be the end of his night's work.

Gretchen Peters and Otis Gibbs duet on Wild Horses
Unlike many other festivals, the Maverick doesn't really have a headline act, summing up the egalitarian nature of the artists invited, but highly respected Nashville based singer-songwriter Gretchen Peters appeared at the top of the promotional information and was selected to close proceedings in the Peacock Café around 10.30. This second 2012 visit to the UK with husband and co-performer Barry Walsh followed a highly successful spring tour promoting her critically acclaimed album 'Hello Cruel World' and is designed to bring her work to a wider audience through a string of festival appearances. With a set containing many of the masterful songs from this album such as 'Woman on the Wheel', 'Matador', 'Five Minutes' and 'Idlewild' , a fair number of the audience were already familiar with these songs and long standing admirers were treated to a version of, what is considered her UK signature tune, 'On a Bus to St. Cloud'. Although the tight schedule restricted encores during the day, Gretchen's enthusiastic audience were treated to one more number with a song which is becoming a feature of both her own and 'Wine, Women and Song' shows , a rendition of 'Wild Horses' by the Rolling Stones ably assisted on partial duet by the invited return to the stage of Otis Gibbs. Spring 2013 tour dates are already announced by Gretchen and we eagerly await her next career development.

With the closing of the Peacock Café, it was just left to the Barn to bring the whole successful day to its conclusion with a blistering performance from Austin royalty and long time alt-country legend Alejandro Escevado and his band the Sensitive Boys. Without being too familiar with his body of work, the let your hair down rock-infused sound certainly raised his profile within my sphere of awareness and impressive tracks such as 'Bottom of the World' written about the live music capital of the world - Austin, Texas, and 'San Antonio Rain' created a desire to further seek out his material. This includes an imminent album release called 'Big Station' of which the title track was included in the set.

As the band came to the end of their encore cover of the Rolling Stones 'Beast of Burden', the time had come to leave Maverick 2012 and hope that the apparent success of the festival is matched by the all important financial reckoning. The attendance seemed in line with previous years and with the added proof that the sun does shine on Maverick Saturday, surely the scene is set for a re-staging of the day when country, roots and Americana assembles in a small farm in Suffolk.

Words & Pictures:David Hughes
http://threechordsandthetruthuk.blogspot.co.uk/