Hi All
The summer is passing us by in a haze of music, allotment and beachy hols with the kids, and it occurred to me that I never got round to doing the blog. Sad ommisssion on my part...
For those that weren't lucky enough to be there: we organised and hosted a weekend of acoustic blues music for the Upton Blues Festival (17th -19th July) this year. We had 17 acts over the 3 days and a fantastic experience!
To start with
HUGE THANKS to:
Rach and and John from the Boathouse for being the best people to work with, and the perfect hosts
To the
Blues festival Committee, who gave us free rein to do it our way, and were very supportive as well.
To the artists of course...
We had blues from every end of the acoustic spectrum, from the Delta slides of
Poor Bob Jones and
Slidin' Steve, through the modern day Lonnie Johnson that is
David Bristow, the sheer musicianship of
Paul Cowley and Tony Stokes to the more modern takes on the style:
Ragtime Ewan - with his anarchic, troubadour approach to pre-war ragtime
Tyler Massey - a True American - playing country and bluegrass
Mark Bennett - with his dusky, raw edged vocals, playing acoustic and electric
Stompin on Spiders who harnessed the rockier style
The brilliant
Mellow Peaches - a truly mellow, truly peachy and subtly powerful blues (They have just released an EP - best way to spend a fiver!)
Abie Budgen with her hobo, storytelling blues
Slim and Dusty, our very talented friends
And
Brendan 'The Bear' who took us on an unexpected and wonderful harmonica journey...
We may be acoustic, but that doesn't mean we don't do big energy and big noise!
BabaJack definitely do just that and we are not alone. Big thanks to
Matt Woosey and the Strange Rain, Chicken Bone Blues and
John Denton for the headline sets.
To the
AUDIENCE - who were the very best. Sorry if you couldn't get in. We had to shut the doors at times due to the sheer numbers - for health adn safety reasons. We thank you for your support, and hope that you got in when you wanted to.
We have had some great
FEEDBACK. Fantastic, in fact. Loads of individual expressions of support and appreciation.
But the best by far for us, was the committee reporting that the feedback they have had was that the Boathouse was the best venue, with the best music. Straight from the horses' mouth:
Acoustic Blues rules! All the artists are from the
Midlands, we rule!Do it all again, next year? Too damn right!