Folk
March 6, 2008
I'M just back from a folk concert in South
Yorkshire which was centred around a
competition to find the best new young folk
performers in the area, with a cash prize and the
promise of a concert spot at this year's
Cleethorpes Festival on offer to the winner. With
the wealth of new talent on show up here in the
North-East, it's sometimes easy to take these
amazing youngsters for granted, but I found
myself bowled over by the sheer enthusiasm
and skill of these kids, with some fine
instrumental ability matched by deft vocal and
harmony work, plus pleasing stage presence
from all of them.
This last element is often the one weak spot
that can make or break the audience s reaction,
no matter how good the music might be, but
everyone made a fine effort in this regard. One of
the acts grabbed my attention was a group
called Four Square, who had all the bases
covered with style. They weren't even the
winners in the end, but watch out for them
around the northern festivals
this summer.
There's a fine mixture of new
and not-so-new, but great
nonetheless around the
region's folk venues this week,
with wild child Jim Moray showing why he's
grabbed the scene's attention at Dipton's Cap a
Pie tomorrow. Saturday sees music hall maestro
Dave Sealy at Washington's Davy Lamp, while
Sunday brings the fabulous Benny Graham to
Westoe Sports Club. Monday has one of the
area's finest singers and instrumentalists Pete
Wood, doing a rare solo gig at Stockton's Sun
Inn, and there's a rare gig by one of the best
local duos on Wednesday, when Terri and Eric
Freeman take to the stage of Birtley's RAOB
Club. Finally, thanks to everyone who came to
our Caedmon Hall gig last week. The recording
went well, and will sound even better when
we've dubbed on the 20-piece orchestra and the
brass section.
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
