Reading Folk Club, 1st April 2007

Well, it wasn't an April Fools trick: the good people of Readifolk were expecting us on 1st April, and we had a very enjoyable night indeed.

Given that we have some great friends in Reading, my wife and son travelled with us to the 'gig', as did our great friend and part time photographer and sound recordist (as well as a very neat guitarist in his own right!) Andy Garretty. Joe and Mandy laid on an excellent late Sunday afternoon roast dinner, and Rob and I had chance to do an hour's rehearsal before setting off to Readifolk - which certainly got us off the washing up.

We had been working very hard in the weeks before and putting in a lot of rehearsal to get the full set organised. This was pretty much our full repetoire to date that we were putting on show.

As with our previous visit there, the organisers at Reading were extremely welcoming and put us at our ease immediately. Friends and family arrived soon after, and with a good turnout from the Reading regulars, we pretty much had a full house. We had even been identified as the Editor's Choice in that week's Reading Chronicle - quite a shock for Joe and mandy to find Rob and I looming out of their local newspaper as they were checking out the cinema pages in the week before! All down to the excellent marketing of the team at Readifolk.

We had brushed up quite a bit of existing material from the CD and added a few new songs and tunes - including some Spanish material Rob has been working on. And I am pleased to say it all went very well indeed. It turned out that it was a very quiet night for floor singers and, as such, we played a couple of very long sets indeed. We should confess that when the night's MC then said I think we can ask Na-Mara for one more, the tank was empty - we had played our 'encores' in the second set, including Mick Hanly's version of The Verdant Braes of Screen. So, Rob sat out and I did a rendition of Tir Na Nog's Daisy Lady which I hadn't played for some time. Thankfully, Una, one of the organisers knew it and liked it very much - so, it ended up being a very nice way to end the evening.

So we had chance to call back on Joe and Mandy after the show for a cup of tea before setting off back to St Albans. We have had some great feedback from the night, sold a few CDs and, thanks to the new found friends at Reading, our confidence is now as high as it has ever been. Thank you Readifolk - we wish you all the very best. We certainly hope to be back.