The Sage and beyond...

And behold, the next day the sun shone, enabling the reopening of the Forth Bridge and our passage to Gateshead, the other Significant UK Snow Location, where we played at the beautiful Sage, being on our version of best behaviour to meet up in the bar with John Tobler, our record company’s boss! A shame Pete Scrowther’s sister was too snowed in to make it, for it was a good rocking night.

Dear reader, I’m aware that by now the detail is probably a little fulsome, so I’ll get on with it; Manchester saw us at Band on the Wall, which has been renovated within an inch of its life. Our old chum, Yorkshire’s own country-rocker Des Horsfall (his new Ronnie Lane-inspired album to be released soon; Peggy and I are both on it!) turned up, as did even older chum, Folk Godfather and Inspiration – he blew my socks irretrievably off when I saw him for the first time at the Victoria Folk Club, Leicester, in 1965 - Martin Carthy (we really have had a fair amount of royalty show up this year, you know). Thence to Kendal (thank you, the man from Dumfries, for those words elsewhere in this website – it was a good show, wasn’t it!) where afterwards we all sang wine-fuelled Christmas carols around Joyce’s lovely Art Deco piano; next morning onward through a now seriously freezing England to Skegness where the utterly brilliant Folk Weekend at Butlins was impressing everyone I spoke to, including Pete & Lee from my own dear Warwickshire village (two huge warm indoor concert rooms, great PA, screens, real ale bars – everything you need from a folkfest [apart from sunshine] without the usual summer accessories of drizzle, mud, wet tents, damp sleeping bags, etc. You don’t even need to bring your own chairs – we have seen FolkFest Future and it’s comfortable!)
We got there just in time to catch Kate Rusby and her brass ensemble a-carolling and wassailing for all they were worth.. (NB: At Butlins now the very comfortable accommodations are no longer called chalets, they’re units; they look just like New England-style factory outlet shopping malls, all white clapboard and little clock towers but missing the signs for Rockport and Bass shoes). So with a glow on from the extended set and a little celebratory drinkie we slipped away to our units, past imaginary windows full of Eddie Bauer, Old Navy and Aeropostale – a little bit of Massachusetts in sub-zero Lincolnshire.
P.J.