Last weekend Festival at Southwell!

The Gate to Southwell festival is a relatively new Folk Festival based on an old tradition. The Morris Dancers will traditionally dance all the way from Nottingham to Southwell (half hour drive, several hours dancing). They still do it, but now with a little more variety on the music end. We did three sets and three workshops, with warm reception. Some of the highlights were... Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson (Aus./Ireland), The Butler Family, John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkYOZyNocrw (you gotta see this) and of course the Festival of Ales that was going on all weekend. (over 76 kegs)

Ales of the weekend:

Rupert's War Dog
WPA
Lincoln Best
Gatehopper
Hopadoodledoo
Brillsteam
Pauper's Ale
Gardner's Tap
Father Hawkins
Magic Mild
The Monkey

Live @ The Institute! A diversion around a Roman tollbooth, Kelvedon is a beautiful old town with a rich history. We stayed in a 600 year old house, (with ghosts, of course!) and markings to ward off witches (?? hope it worked). James and Tony run a regular series of concerts hosting great acoustic acts from all over including our friend Cara Luft! We were lucky to share the night with Sam Sallon, beautiful songwriter and guitar player from England. Another surprise highlight was listening to Tony's CD in the car on our drive to Southwell...

Ale of the Day: Brewer's Gold is made here, James works for the brewery, which also makes a couple of other nice ones... Amarillo and Essex Boys Bitter

"What's Cookin?" Curry is what.... Leytonstone at the North Star for the What's Cookin show and back to our favourite Indian buffet at The Eatery. This show always gets a great crowd thanks to Stephen Ferguson and his antics. Double bill with The Black Oil Brothers from Chicago! A raucous night and good fun. While we've been in London we've been staying with Tricia and Uday, our home away from home, we were glad to enjoy this show with them!

Ale of the Day: Brewer's Gold

The Old Queen's Head. A beautiful upstairs acoustic room in Islington. Supported by Danni Nichols solo acoustic and The Hi and Lo, Nick on drums, guitar and harmonica at the same time! Crazy. Some friends from Fire in the Mountain came down, and a great time was had. Thanks to Owl for putting it together!

London times!

Back to the big city and The Workshop, a little underground acoustic music spot, underneath the Road Trip Bar in Shoreditch. This was one of our smallest crowds, but favourite shows, mostly for the folks we met! We almost didn't do this show, but we were glad we did! The other artists on the bill were great, Dean Johansen from The Human Condition (USA), Nathalie Nahai, and Jenny & Stuff ("Stuff" were Joe and Bella Chipperfield on guitar and harp). Great sounds and great people.

Pint of the Day: We stuck with Guinness, not a good selection on tap here. We also were missing Ireland.

Hello Brighton, we're back!
Had to make a visit to one of our favourite spots from last year, The Greys Pub in Brighton! It was great to see our friends Chris and Jill who we met last year. They even came all the way to Canada to see a hockey game a few months ago! Solid folks! The Greys is a lovely little pub with a good reputation for good music every monday night. It was here that Tyler rekindled his love for scampi fries and we were well taken care of by Ben and Joe. We even watched a bit of Stanley Cup Action.

Ale of the day: Landlord

Fire in the Mountain!

We left Ireland early in the morning and got on the Dun Laoghaire ferry to Holyhead. The sun that had been shining all week over Ireland started to make way to rain and we were worried for our night of camping ahead in Wales. Fortunately it was out again by the time we were making our way through the windy mountain roads of the Welsh countryside. We made a quick stop at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch and then wound our way up to the Fire in the Mountain Festival. We passed sheep and castles and rocks and hills and more sheep and more rocks and more castles and the roads got tinier and the hedges got higher and the hills got steeper, the drive seemed to go on for hours. We thought we had left civilization for good when our gps finally said "you have reached your destination". We stopped and noticed some tents out in a field and as we wandered in, we found ourselves on an old farm with ancient buildings creating a magical village housing a stage, a pub, and barbecue/kitchen. All kinds of folks were dancing, enjoying the music, eating, drinking and jamming as we sat stunned on the steps of the old farmhouse.

We met Joe Buirski and Owl who got us sorted out and we jumped up on stage for a 10pm set. The crowd was primed for dancing and madness and with a little help from some Irish medicine, we brought a rousing set. The crowd had an amazing energy... there was wild dancing, hearty singing and the even the biggest group hug I've ever seen! We ended off with a bunch of folks from the other bands joining us on stage for "drunken sailor", not sure how that happened.

Ale of the Day: Station (Welsh)