Well what a busy and full year 2008 was for us. We thought we would do a review of the year with some highlights and general reminiscing….complete with spelling and grammar mistakes just to interest the teachers amongst you!
Thought the best way to do this was by doing a month by month account so...
January
January was as usual a quiet month gigs wise so we took the opportunity to do stuff….you know…....things that we had been meaning to do but never found time to actually do. January is also the time Una takes a trip back to
February
Normal service was resumed during February with plenty of gigs and a couple of radio interviews….the one for Oldham community radio was not our best as my guitar was out of tune and we listened to the cd and…oh lord did it sound bad!
Our album Clearwater continued to get great reviews and airplay although totally ignored by the major UK radio stations like radio two we were making some headway and by the end of June we had airplay on over 100 radio stations world wide. The album was also nominated for a radio stations album of the year award and came third.
Our Myspace page was also picking up a lot of hits and we were making a lot of new friends.
March
With St Patrick’s Day falling in March we were very busy doing gigs. We did a lot of gigs at new venues to us in March, including our first golf club. We also started getting bookings from some festivals so we bought a new tent, one that according to the sales person will withstand gale force winds!!
Again our album is receiving some more great reviews and air play. Our myspace friends are leaving some lovely comments so we added a myspace comments page to the site.
April
We started of with a radio interview in
April is also the time of the Mansfield beer festival and this time they had moved the venue from the football ground to a new venue, this proved to be a great idea and we had a great night and look forward to doing it again if asked.
May
May saw us do our first festival at
It was then off to Cromer for the Folk on the Pier festival and again we had a great time and no we did not use the tent. It was still too early in the year to camp! Again we took the time at the festival to see Show of Hands perform….this was the first time live that we had seen them and Mr Nightly has a new fan in Una.
The final festival was the Bude Folk Festival Cornwall. We decided to use our old tent for this one and that was the mistake as we got blown off the camp site so we ended up in someone’s caravan!. Still the festival is another great little festival and we will be going back again in 2008 although with a stronger tent!
It was also nice to go back to Winston and the gang at Sandbach acoustic club after a few years gap. We enjoy Winston’s dry humour.
June
June saw us again off on our travels,,, this time it was our first visit (but not the last) to Dorset for the Wessex Folk Festival, This was our second year performing at this festival and the weather is always beautiful. We have made some good friends at this festival and it is a smashing little festival. Supporting Dick Goughan was again a delight, he is one of the gentlemen of folk and Una had him bowing down in front of her………….no that is something you do not see every day!
We also did a gig at the Big Session Festival at De Montford hall Leicester, although bigger than
July
Well we took a chance and accepted some bookings from an agent to perform at some Haven holiday homes………….Yes we were not sure if this is the way we want to go but we took six bookings. As it happens they varied some were great others were hard work, it was down to the entertainments officer as to how good they were. The standard varied so much but if we were to be asked to do it again we would take 4 of the 6 again.
Again we had another trip down south to Some5rset to the West Somerset Folk Festival. This is a small festival on one site at a cricket club and it was also the first time we used the new tent. We had a lovely time, again a small intimate festival and because of that we made a number of new friends and had a great night on the Friday night concert. If you like camping and a small festival we would recommend both Bude and This festival.
August
Well we packed our bags and again set off for
We also enjoyed exploring new areas we had not been to before and we found a couple of new venues that we will try to get gigs at for next year.
September
September saw us do a gig at the now renamed
We also achieved out goal of getting 1000 request sent into radio two for our song Absent Friends to be played. Unfortunately radio two and the head of music made it quite clear that it would not matter if we had a million request sent in they decide what is played not the public..Very strange as the public pay for them to exist..We have not given up on this yet so keep coming back fro updates.
We also did our final trip of the year to Dorset and it was apt to finish off the trip with a gig at the Square and Compass…one of the best pubs in
October
Well October saw us do another of our away weekends…..this time to
We also did a lovely little spot at Cox’s yard in Stratford upon Avon, although it is was an open mike night the standard was very high and we will try to get back again next year to do a longer spot.
November
A touch of de ja vu here as we again headed to
This was brave of the hotel to put us on and we thank them for all there efforts in making it a great night.. That was the last of our away day weekends and the rest of the month saw us nearer to home. One of the best nights was the gig supporting a band called Never the bride at the Pokey hole club. A full house of 200 people and a great atmosphere. We hope to keep in touch with Never the bride and we may pop down to
December
Well the highlight of December has to be the “let’s get out of the house” concert that we had arranged and promoted. This was our first time as promoters and we have put the full story on another page. We had great night at two new venues for Xmas eve and New Years Eve so thanks to all who came along and see you somewhere down the road.
Well that’s it…..another year passes by and we look forward to seeing what 2009 brings……..and we hope to see you somewhere down the road!
Hi all,
Well here is our review of 2007 and what a year for us! New festivals, new album and lots of new friends.
We thought it would be best to go month by month so we hope you enjoy.
January
Although normally a quiet month, we really enjoyed some great gigs. We always enjoy performing at real ale pubs and the Out Of the Vaults in
We were also spending a lot of time in the studio working on the album so we did not see to much daylight in January.
February
Again lots of effort was going into working on the album and we were delighted with the progress as a lot of the songs were now taking shape and we could imagine and hear what the final album would sound like.
We were also expanding our performance area and we performed at a very nice folk club called the common folk club in
March
March is always a busy month for us as St Patrick’s Day strangely falls in March! Did you know St Patrick was English? Our gig on St Patrick’s Day was at the students Union in
March also saw us perform at our first beer festival of the year at
April
Once again the album was our main priority and we were so close we could taste it! We were in what they call the final mix mode and we were working on our artwork for the album. Soon………soon. Meanwhile to stop us going mad we enjoyed a couple of great beer festivals at the Boat in Cromford and the Horse and Groom in
May
We had our first festival of the year! no we did not camp as
June
June saw us at our busiest. The album release, Folk festivals, beer festivals and folk clubs. To be honest it is all a bit of a blur. The album was released and copies were sent to press and radio all over the world not just the
If you are a regular visitor to our web site you will know about the great feedback and reviews we had. We seemed to spend all our time at the local post office.. we were certainly on first name terms with the owner of the post office! He even gave us our own stamp wetter machine. With all this hard work it was a relief to get away to the
July
Again the Album was picking up more great reviews and comments. Not just in the
August
Ok enough about our album!!! So what else were we up to? Well we did our first ‘TOUR’ again we have given the tour its own page here on this web site strangely called festblog this covers a festival appearance at Bideford and our adventures under canvas.. well worth a look at if only to spot the spelling mistakes!!!
After our adventures in Dorset we ended the month with a regular beer festival at the
September
Well we were off to Fylde folk festival at the beginning of the month….camping….again….Yes we ignored all the advice we were given after the year before……….gale force winds……lashing rain…….. but we thought lightning dose not strike twice…..WRONG!! We were again blown away and if we are invited back again we have learnt our lesson!
We also took a holiday in September and ended up in
October
Refreshed from our trip to
Sorry I will get off my soap box now but we find it strange that some folk club and festival organisers look down there noses at us for taking the music ‘out there’ perhaps if there were a few more brave souls like us then people would take notice of folk music and not make as much fun of it as they do now.
November
Funny this!! My rant above sort of continues as we performed at the Association of festival organiser’s conference in Eastwood. After paying for the privilege to perform we were told we had 20 min and if we went over we would be pulled off!!
OK we are professional enough an rehearsed our songs AND the banter between to make sure we were under 20 min. We got there and we were second on, the first performers promptly over ran by 10 min and we were asked to cut our performance by five min to get the thing back on track! We did it but we learnt a valuable lesson…… do not assume that because you try to be professional all others will do the same!! Needless to say we will not be doing that again and the bad taste will linger…….. Still on the up side we are so busy with work we do five performances in one weekend…. Yes five we are out Friday night, Sat afternoon, Sat night, Sun afternoon and night so we must be doing something right!!
December
