Letchworth and Baldock Folk Club 21st February 2007

Rob and I sent Alan, who runs the Letchworth and Baldock club a copy of our CD some time ago and, very kindly, they asked us to come and do a 25 minute warm up slot to support the main act -the club's resident band Tam Lin, and what a pleasure it turned out to be. This is a really nice club. The venue, The Orange Tree in Baldock is a nice friendly pub, laid out with trestle tables and candles and a (very) small performance area.

By their own admission, it was a quiet night, but it was easy to see how great it must be when they have got a Vin Garbutt or a Martin Carthy in there and the club is buzzing.

As the second on the bill, we were straight on and did the first 25 minutes or so. It was nice to get a decent length of time to gert into the swing of things and, again, as we build our repetoire, we tried a couple of new numbers. We did a song from Triona ni Dhmonaill's repetoire - 'When I was a fair maid', and a song that Rob has composed. taking an 18th Century poem about the fate of a sailor who fought at Trafalgar and who was rapidly forgotten by the nation he fought for (sounds rather familiar really). The song is very beautiful and is called 'Who is it knocks?' Thankfully the audience was sympathetic to a few rough edges on these new tunes.

Tam Lin, percussion, guitar and two fiddles were the main act and played really well, doing a wide and varied mix of material and the third act, Malcolm Hobbs, did a great little set playing an absolutely beautiful Brooks, guitar shpaed Irish bouzouki. I would dearly love to see a longer session by him.

(Anyway, they must have liked us because they have asked us back for two more visits in 2007 and a main spot in '08. Very nice indeed, thank you)

It seems traditional that late night rides home throw a few motorway surprises, and this was no exception. Still, the long ride home gave me chance to reminisce on a few folk songs we used to sing at the Anchor Folk Club in Middlesbrough, back in the 1970s, especially a song about the Titanic sinking, that I haven't heard since and haven't been able to find amongst the many that have been written. I will keep searching.

All eyes now are on the next gigs. We have a slot at Cambridge in mid March, then a session at a more classical meeting in Welwyn the week after, followed by our first main spot at Readifolk in Reading on April 1st. I trust they weren't joking when they booked us for that date!