WAS that the future of folk music that I witnessed in Sydney last week? In a small, trendy bar in the suburb of Redfern, young men and women, who might usually feel more at home in the dance clubs and rave houses, gather every Monday night at The Shanty Club, and spend two hours talking, drinking and flirting, but mainly joining in with gusto and glee, as a bunch of bearded young lads belt out Blow the Man Down, The Wild Rover, Johnny’s Gone to Hilo, and many more well-known favourites.

It was an extraordinary scene, and these old songs that I’d considered as worn-out and old-hat, were suddenly brought to life again by the sheer enthusiasm of these fresh-faced twenty-somethings. They weren’t there to sit quietly and listen, and I’m sure most of them didn’t care about or were aware of the origins of these songs, but they’re breathing new life into the folk scene here in New South Wales.

It’s something they have started themselves, without the “guiding lights” of the long-established scene here persuading them it was something they should do, as is often the case with well-meaning folk enthusiasts in the UK. I think it would be great if somehow, somewhere, a similar thing was happening back home.

There’s plenty of good stuff that is happening of course, with Fay Hield at The Sage in Gateshead on Monday night, and a choice next Wednesday between Ragged Union at The Queens Hall in Hexham, and a chance to hear a new project about songs of loneliness by Scots singer Ewan MacLennan and the writer and journalist George Monbiot, at the Miners Hall in Durham. I’m currently being blown around and soaked by cyclones down here in South Australia. So much for my Antipodean tan.