BristolÂ’s fabulous Folk Festival

After a thirty-year absence, Bristol Folk Festival came back to life this sunny Mayday weekend. A roster of massively entertaining acts gave stonking performances for a two thousand strong audience who showed their appreciation with plenty of whooping, singing and dancing in the aisles.

Chock full of the brightest and best in UK folk music Bristol's line-up promised much and delivered more. Friday proceedings were jumpstarted by the festival-goer's favourite 3 Daft Monkeys and brought to an energised climax by Seth Lakeman, the raunchy face of Folk. Saturday eveningÂ’s showcase featured the gutsy Cornish chorale Port Isaac's The Fisherman's Friends, sensational Irish traditional band Dervish, and folk's firm favourites Show of Hands. The night was topped off by an hilarious silent disco with DJs Jim Causley and Jim Moray. Sunday saw a day and night Bellowhead takeover culminating in a showbiz ticker tape finale.

Playing indoors to a seated auditorium 3 Daft Monkeys were somewhat out of their natural habitat in Colston Hall, the Festival's city centre venue, but soon they made it their own. This was the band's first Festival performance of the year, and the first with "Drummer for the summer" Tim for ten years, so the band's usual jiggery folkery had extra exuberance. Announcing at the start of their set that dancing on chairs was allowed gave people all the excuse they needed to get up and get on down and they did so - down the aisles, in the stalls and up on the balconies. Even those who remained seated joined in with the sit down waltzes and sways. The 3DM show really set the form for the rest of the weekend, people didn't feel shy to sashay and holler to their heart's content.

Festival patron Seth Lakeman received an even more rapturous reception, especially from the adoring Sethettes and Lakeman ladies massed in front of the stage. The steaminess of their desires seemed to cause Seth some tuning trouble, but presumably that's just part of 'Making Folk sexy', making the female 'folks' sexy in particular. The hour and a half set was amazing, featuring many great tunes - 'Hurlers', 'King & Country', 'Setting of the Sun' and 'Colliers'. The songs lyrics are passionate, unsentimental and the music was loud, catchy and clear. At the end of the set 'Kitty Jay' proved too much for those who'd managed to stay seated, the whole auditorium ecstatically bopped and bounced along as Friday night came to a sweaty, breast-heaving climax.

By Saturday evening most folk had regained their composure, and seats, for Port Isaac's The Fisherman's Friends. Belly shouts and strong harmonies of hauling shanties, sad fo'castle songs and the capstan's favourite 'South Australia' pepper a well-honed set. They interact easily with the audience as if the performance was on their harbour side, the waves crashing and gulls calling in the background. "Join in, but don't bugger it up" is the instruction to sing along with the well-known 'Sloop John B' then mime hauling and the climbing up the mast to 'The Last Shanty'. Styling themselves the "New cods on the block", with more than a hint of irony, these nine well-seasoned chaps belt out a set of shanties worthy of the saltiest sea dog.



Like a so many jacks-in-the-box the audience were again from their seats and on to their feets for Dervish's set. A familiar Irish combination of fiddle, whistle and guitar, the band are lead by charismatic singer and bodhran maestro Cathy Jordan. Her between song banter was most amusing, describing the golden era of Irish history when a man could go out a hare hunting at the weekend or go to the pub for one drink and come back twenty years later. Befitting their name, the up tempo instrumentals were enrapturing, dancers merrily jigged up and down the aisles accompanied by joyful whoops and yips from a delighted crowd as the pot bubbled up nicely.

The atmosphere became more solemn for the Saturday night's main course, Show of Hands. The three-piece duo clearly relished playing for the warmed up, appreciative crowd, and gave a magnificent performance. The set featured their special blend of traditional material. 'The Blue Cockade', 'Haul Away Joe' mixed with contemporary songs like 'The Boys of Summer' and Bruce Springstein's 'Youngstown', and combined with their own songs commenting on issues affecting folk of today such as 'Country Life' about the decline of village life and 'Stop Copying Me' about real communication in the time of tweets. As they say these songs don't go out of date, they just come back round, 'Santiago' a case in point. This song about Chilean miners was first sung early 90s, back then it was inspired by Pinochet's oppression. Now it is rejuvenated by reference to last year's liberation of Los 33. Members of Dervish and P.I. Fisherman's Friends joined Steve, Phil and Miranda on stage for the final numbers. 'Cousin Jack' provoked an emotional response with the audience rising to sing along with the heartfelt chorus "Where there's a mine or a hole in the ground...". The showcase closed with all on stage stepping past their microphones to sing an unamplified farewell to the crowd, for which they received a passionate roar of approval and a standing ovation.

Meanwhile on the Fred Wedlock stage there was a most surreal happening – a silent disco with DJs Jim Causley and Jim Moray. At the door to this side room headphones were issued with simple instructions – put them on, turn them up. Inside the hushed, darkened room people were reaching for the stars and shaking their booty as the two Jims conducted a silent soundclash. Genius mashups of morris tunes with S Club 7 and Shakira had the room throwing shapes and strutting their folkie stuff. Michael Jackson's 'Billy Jean' combined with Seth Lakeman's 'Kitty Jay' was amazing, but for me the funniest moment was the sing along to 'Remember you're a Womble', so bad it had to be good. Sadly the fun stopped all too soon, midnight struck and the disco closed, but it was hilarious whilst it lasted. Saturday night disco dancing at a Folk festival, who would have thought.

Sunday belonged to the fabulous big band Bellowhead. Their Festival closing show got off to a rocking start with the catchy 'Yarmouth Town'. By the time they'd worked through tunes like 'Flight of the Folk Mutants' to 'Sloe Gin' the audience had been whipped into a frenzy of unbridled pogo-ing. Jon Boden's manic energy caught hold. Benji Kirkpatrick demonstrated his 'Benjitsu' style jumping onto the monitors to clown fending away the horn section whilst Rachel McShane and Paul Sartin took to Pete Flood's drumkit as the drummer went on walkabout. As ever the superb musicians continually swapped between bewildering array of instruments without seeming to pause for breath. The set's showbiz finale saw Jim Moray present the 2010 FRoots magazine 'Best Album' Award and an almighty shower of silvered ticker tape during their encore.

With various feature performances the band members and friends made a real day of it. Jon Boden & John Spiers led the terrifically chaotic Spiers & Boden Ceilidh mid-afternoon in the auditorium. The chaos was fuelled, in part, by the band's own Hedonism beer which on sale at the bar. Jon's partner Fay Hield played slightly wyrd traditional and revival songs with Sam Sweeney and Rob Habron on the Fred Wedlock stage as The Fay Hield Trio. Paul Sartin played with Belshazzar's Feast alongside Paul Hutchinson, their collection of musical puns, banter and wordplay amused the audience jam packed into the side room. Their show might have been better programmed for the main stage as after the first few rows only the tallest could enjoy the physical comedy. The audience was somewhat sparser for Rachel McShane Trio's show later in the evening, but those who stayed were nonetheless enthralled by her jazzy take on Folk music.


Bristol's last Folk Festival in 1979 folded amidst downpours and the site flooding. This year the weather was fine and the venue far removed from a muddy field by the river Avon. Colston Hall is a modern glass-fronted building with interesting open spaces and elevated walkways grafted onto what once must have been a musichall theatre. Slick PR, stadium prices for standard range of beers and ciders, clean and plentiful toilet facilities and security guards policing the access points and building, good humoured if a shade authoritarian, illustrate how much of a move towards professionalism and the mainstream this current incarnation of the Folk revival has made since the last one ground to a halt in the 1970's.

Some elements of the previous revival remain. Keith Christmas is a direct link with that time, the 1970s Glastonbury veteran and gave a fantastic solo performance on the modern halls top level, hopefully he can now celebrate a brighter day for this music. Both The Fay Hield Trio and Pilgrims Way used material inspired by or drawn from sources like Peter Bellamy, one of the more 'out there' members of the 70s set. Ruarri Joseph brilliantly played the part of the barefoot troubadour and Kathryn Roberts And Sean Lakeman the loving couple with wistful songs and the flowing dresses (her, not him).

This time around the Morris dancing seems to especially interest the twenty somethings. Bristol had a rolling programme of Morris sides performing throughout the weekend directly outside the Hall. Many of the sides were mixed and noticeably young. Bristol University's Rag Morris and local side Nonesuch were the mainstays of these shows. At dawn on Sunday morning Rag Morris and a few other invited sides were up atop nearby Brandon Hill greeting the first sun of the summer on Mayday, or Beltane as some prefer to call it. Later in the morning a Maypole was erected and a spiral dance performed, although the maypole was somewhat dwarfed by the tall buildings surrounding it was still an interesting sight.

All in all the Festival was wonderfully entertaining with some interesting quirky features like the Beltane thing, Sunday afternoon's Folk Poetry Slam and Kieron the Mighty's incredible close up magic. There were some excellent young acts like Jamie Smith's Mabon – the funky face of folk - and the lovely Bella Hardy. Facilities were good, although the indoor camping was basic - at best. The event has already been scheduled for Mayday weekend 2012 so it would seem using a city centre theatre, paying security and booking the biggest acts on the circuit hasn't bankrupted the organisers. Here's hoping for another Royal Wedding so we can have the Friday off again – get to work Harry.

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