New Essex Bluegrass Band: Past gigs 2007

Another home fixture for Paul and Mike. An interesting evening, featuring an attempt on the largest number of people per square metre of pub space ever recorded, an enthusiastic family party, an amazingly good drag act, and a bluegrass band.

Despite having played here a couple of times before, we were invited back! The Kings Head is turning into a bit of a bluegrass venue, as there is now not only a series of concerts here, but also a pick (last Tuesday of the month). It hasn't yet achieved the fame of The Station Inn, Nashville, but Michelina and Richard are working on it.

We didn't featuring Dixon on banjo, this time, as he is now living in California and has got himself a new band, so we are all looking forward to hearing what that is like. Our old mate, Kenny Baker, was to have played banjo for us, but he has had a nasty fall, and broken his leg. I'm sure everyone who knows Kenny will wish him a speedy recovery. Greg Wright was prevailed on to stand behind the banjo for this, and for the next few gigs.

Great fun was had by all at the Christmas party. The house band were wonderful and provided the PA, for which many thanks and the Accoustic Astronauts played a nice set. This was our first serious gig with Kenny Baker on banjo, who did a mighty fine job. Many thanks to the club for inviting us, and for everyone who turned out on a bitterly cold evening.

Sad to say, this was our last gig (at least on this side of the Atlantic) with Dixon Smith, our banjo player. Dixon has been with us for nearly 2 years and has added an authentic, traditional banjo sound to the band. He has been in the UK for nearly 13 years, but has decided to return the USA to start a new life over there. We will all really miss him, both as a friend and as a musician.

Greg enjoyed himself at the fiddle workshop. If anyone who attended would like the dots for the tunes that were played, email Greg and he can send you some PDFs of the music.

If you have not been to St Julians may we recommend it to you as a great place to visit. Once again, Chris Richardson made a video of us, this time playing Cold Wind. We'll put up a link to it once it is done. You can get a flavour of the day from the first video on the Music page of this site.

The venue was the fabulous High Barn in the village of Great Bardfield, easily accessible from the A120 between Stansted and Braintree. This is a great venue for live music and we really enjoyed playing here and especially listening to Liberty Pike, who were on great form. If you have not heard the band, they are well worth making the effort to go out and see. took some photographs. We had some fun before the show picking with Liberty Pike... here is one of Dixon with Brandon Bostic (everywhere Dixon goes he finds a left-handed banjo player!) The photographs were taken by Becky Buller (the wonderful fiddle player of Liberty Pike).

There were, perhaps, slightly fewer folks than last year, but due to the rain, we were all compressed into the bar and hall, so we saw a lot more of everyone than last year when folks spread out all over the field to do their picking. The pig was rosted, the beer consumed, and a good time was had by all.

The Saturday night concert was a treat, with Kevin Garratt's band opening the proceedings. Joe was standing in for Richard, maintaining his record of playing in more than one band at every venue where I have seen him. They produced a stonking set, it was hard to believe that it was put together 30 minutes before the concert began.

Sunday morning was fun... in a way. Hazel and I managed to take our tent down without it touching the ground (a more accurate description would be liquid mud). The population had thinned out a little by lunchtime, and we enjoyed a less crowded picking session before heading for home. As we started the car to leave, the rain finally cleared up and a warm, July sun appeared. Hazel and I got home in a little over 3 hours; Paul did not have such luck. His return jouney took some 14 hours due to mechanical problems.

Many thanks to Kevin and his team for all the hard work; we are already looking forward to next year.

There was a wide range of bands to enjoy; we were amazed by the Czech band, Sunny Side, who were astounding - well worth going to see if they ever play anywhere near you. It was also good to catch up with old friends Chris Moreton and the Crocker Brothers, and the Duffy Brothers were on excellent form. They should be comissioned to make a video of the Health and Safety section of the act to be shown to all festival organisers. There were too many other great acts to mention them all, but we certainly enjoyed listening.

For those amongst you who keep track of our shirts, yes, we really are all dressed in PINK. This aberration was due to Dixon spotting a bargain in Tesco's - he managed to attire the entire band for £10. This error has been further compounded by Paul purchasing 5 matching PINK hats. We think we will use these as forfeits for anyone who drops a clanger at future gigs...

Considering how dry the weather has been over the past several months, what are the odds of it raining all day! However, despite the inclement weather, which did its best to douse the spirits, the Finchingfield May Fayre took place, more or less as planned. We warmed up in the Village Hall and then playing for the best part of 2 hours in the Fox. We occupied a space of about 1.5 x 1.5 metres. This must be the most confined space ever occupied by a five piece bluegrass band working around 1 microphone!

Despite some of us only just managing to get back from Holland in time to play (as we missed our ferry), this was an excellent day of acoustic music with a strong Bluegrass flavour. The weather was warm and sunny and this brought out a good crowd of musicians and enthusiasts. The venue worked well, providing a stage area outside in the back yard plus several spaces for picking, which were well utilised. Many thanks to Mike Green for inviting us to play.

This festival is an amazing jamboree of some of the best bands in Europe plus a few from the USA. Each band got to play one set of 25 minutes (there were 42 bands altogether). There were also opportunities to play at venues in Voorthuizen. The picture below shows us playing at a cafe within walking distance of the festival.

The festival ran until Saturday the 19th, but we left on Saturday morning to be back in time for the 6th Suffolk Bluegrass and Acoustic Country Music Day.

Although this was the first Orwell Bluegrass Festival, you'd have thought that the organisers had been running festivals for years as everything worked well. They even arranged wonderful, warm sunny weather in April. The site was well chosen, having hard standing for the affluent folk with the RVs and caravans, and a flat field with no undersoil stones for us paupers with our tents. Also imagine a festival with hot showers available all day and never a queue. Add to this hot food available 24 hours a day and a bar that opened early and closed late, and you can see why we all loved it, even before a note was played.

As Hazel (who takes most of our photos) was busy campaigning this weekend (she is a District Councillor and was up for re-election - just as well she got back in or I'd never have heard the last of it), we had no pictures, save this one that Dixon took of part of the audience during our Saturday night set. How many do people you recognise? (No prize for knowing Arthur.) We have stolen the following one from the Orwell web site (well worth a visit via the link above).

We played formal sets in the Friday and Saturday night concert, and particularly enjoyed hosting the Gospel Session on Sunday morning - many thanks to everyone who contributed songs - and to George Malcolmson for the picture (below) and the kind comments. It was also good to catch up with so many friends and make many new ones.

Once again, we would like to apologise for the activities of Dixon (our banjo player); we have now explained to him that in England, we don't run around in a restaurant wearing only a towel.

Paul Brewer also wishes to make it clear that although it looked like he was playing fiddle for Home Territory, it couldn't have been him as he would have tucked his shirt in (we will post photographic evidence of this peculiar event as soon as we have it and you can decide for yourselves).

We played three sets, starting around 8:30 and ending somewhat late... plus an unexpected encore (after we had put all our gear away) for a friend of Mike's who arrived after the witching hour. This being a "home" match for both Paul and Mike (who live in the village) they arrived last. Not so much a night out as a short stroll to the pub for them (except for Mike who lugged his double bass up the hill).