This was our first concert after the summer holidays and, after some hard work at rehearsals, we hit the road on a sunny Saturday afternoon for a special concert in Ely. We had been invited to play for attendees at a conference organised by prestigious The Chartered Institute of Linguists.  A visiting group of linguists from Germany had expressed a specific interest in hearing more about Gaelic and, with others, we helped provide a musical exploration of songs and tunes drawn from across the Celtic world. 

Earlier in the day, the group had attended both a formal lecture on Gaelic languages and a performance of Gaelic song and dance which had clearly proved both enjoyable and highly instructive.  Our role was to round off the day with a further musical journey.  In this we were very ably assisted by Barbara Wibbelmann who provided a wonderful rendition of a number of songs in Scots Gaelic, accompanied at different times by our great friends from the Cambridge Folk Club, Marion Treby (keyboard) and Les Ray (guitar). 

For our part, we sang songs (in English) and tunes from Brittany, Asturias and Galicia, as well as some songs from the French tradition and some of our own songs written in traditional style.  There was also the opportunity to say a few words about how we go about the translation process ourselves. 

I am pleased to report that, in a comfortable room at The Maltings in Ely, the audience proved very attentive and, from the feedback received, clearly enjoyed our and Barbara’s contributions very much. 

Very many thanks to the Chartered Institute of Linguists, in particular Les Ray, for the invitation to perform for their guests in Ely; it was both an honour and a joy. It was also a great preparation for a series of na-mara performances in the coming months. 

It is always wonderful to be invited to play a part in the institution that is the Cambridge Folk Festival and we were honoured to be asked by our good friends at Cambridge Folk Club to provide a brief set on the Club Tent stage.

We set off in the early evening to ensure we had chance to have a good look around before performing quite late on the Club Tent stage.  With all the paperwork supplied by the Cambridge Folk Club in hand, we headed for artists parking and had the honour of catching a black windowed bus to the festival site and having a brief chat with folk legend, Chris While.

Having dropped our kit off at the Club Tent with the Cambridge Folk Club, we had a stroll - if such a thing is possible in an area so jam packed with folk enthusiasts - around the festival site.  The evening was fine and everybody seemed nicely ‘chilled’.  Frank Turner was on the main stage and Blackbeard’s Tea Party whipping everyone up in a ceilidh in Stage 2; all very nice and lively.

We stopped off for a cuppa at one of the local vans and had the pleasure of catching up with the hugely talented Hannah Sanders.  We had shared a stage with Hannah at the St Neots Folk Festival two years earlier and have admired her music ever since.  It is great to know she is doing so well.

We then drifted back to the Club Tent to hear the Sam Kelly Trio and they were absolutely terrific; great voice, great musicianship – the club tent was crammed and jumping.

Given our next tour of the site coincided with one act finishing on Stage 2 and The Proclaimers being in the middle of their sound check, we didn’t catch any more of the big acts and, in the end, headed back to tune up for our brief stint on the Club Tent stage.

I’m pleased to report that we played well and had some nice feedback from our friends at the Cambridge Folk Club, from audience members and from some new friends in the very talented Ipswich-based band, Kiss the Mistress – watch out for them!

Having packed up and said our goodbyes to our hosts and friends, we walked back through the still crowded festival site, eventually leaving it to the strains of The Proclaimers’ last number – you guessed it “I’m Gonna Be (500 miles)”

Many thanks to all our friends at Cambridge Folk Club for the invitation to play at the festival and for their kind words, and we sincerely hope to see them all again in the not too distant future.

It was up bright and early to get on the road for our performance at the 2015 Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival; our sound check was planned for 10.00am and we had 131 miles to get there. 

Despite an early hiccup on the M25 and a detour through Watford, the Sunday morning motorways were reasonably clear and we were able to stop off for a ‘naughty but nice’ breakfast before going on site.

Arrangements and instructions had been very well put together by the organisers and everything to do with site access went smoothly.  The festival was in its third day and, when we did drive onto the site, the early morning campsite was a hive of activity, especially around the cafes and shower cabins. 

We drove up to the back of the Martyrs’ Marquee and dropped all our stuff off.  Once inside the marquee we were looked after extremely well by Jill Beed and her crew colleagues.  This allowed us to get the instruments out of their cases early, have an initial tune-up and then let the instruments settle with the atmosphere.

We then had a good discussion with sound engineers Craig and Hugh who were doing monitors and front of house sound respectively.  They were extremely calm and pleasant to work with and, as we were to find out, produced a wonderful sound not just for us but all the acts that we heard in the Marquee that day.  (They also found time to discuss a couple of wider technical p.a. issues that we have been puzzling over recently which was very kind of them.)

Preparations all done, we went off to explore the festival site with its colourful mixture of campaign stalls, bookshops, eateries and boutiques.  We wandered down to the Main Stage area, where speakers address audiences and bands perform from a terrace alongside the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum that looks out onto a large open area where a substantial audience can be accommodated.  By the time we got there the Thee Faction were already in full flow; their political messages driven home by a great rocky, brassy, sound.  They had a good crowd in front of them who were clearly enjoying their set immensely. 

We then drifted back slowly to the Martyrs’ Marquee to hear first act of the day, Alex Yeandle, getting the audience going with his excellent political songs. Great stage presence, an excellent sense of humour with important political messages, this young man’s name is one to look out for in the future.   We also chatted with Tatty Smart, the MC for the day, who was extremely interested in the stories in our music.  He was a lovely guy to chat with and his subsequent introduction and stage welcome for us was both well researched and generous. 

Then we were on. Inspired by the great sound mix coming back to us through our monitors, we relaxed and were able to play one of the best festival half hour sets that we have done.  This was our kind of audience.  They were listening, interested and sympathetic to the stories we were telling.  We also spiced things up further with a couple of muiñiera sets which the audience whooped their approval of.

As we came off, it was very nice to see the thumbs up from Jill and her colleagues and to have audience members keen to talk to us and, in the case of one family, a request for autographs. We also had a few minutes to chat with a member of the very talented Various Guises group before they followed us onto the stage.  Very kindly, festival organiser Keith Hatch had fought his way through a busy festival site to come and ask us how things had gone.  Given his busy schedule on festival days, this was very much appreciated.

As we packed our gear away, we enjoyed listening to the clever rhythms and harmonies of Various Guises – catch them if you can!

With the help of the festival crew, we safely packed our gear away in the car and went off to find some lunch – and a very decent plate of vegetable curry was had!  By the time we’d done that, we were ready to join our friends from the International Brigade Memorial Trust for the annual procession into the village of Tolpuddle. 

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of agricultural labourers who were arrested, convicted and transported for swearing a secret oath as members of a proto-union, the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers.   The Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival has taken many guises over recent decades, but its consistent purpose remains to recognise the importance of the stand taken by those six farm labourers in the struggle to establish trade union rights in Britain and around the globe.  A key part of that remembrance, alongside the speeches and the music, is the procession into the village when scores of labour and related sympathetic interest organisations bring their banners which supporters and group members walk behind. This immensely colourful array is given extra rhythm and sound by brass bands, drum bands and community choirs mixed in amongst those processing.  The convivial atmosphere is laced with a strong sense of commitment to defending what the original martyrs had achieved.  Given the recent election outcome, this aspect was very much to the fore this year with regulars saying that the 2015 festival was one of the biggest and liveliest they had ever witnessed.

So, we set off behind the IBMT banner, with the Marx Memorial Library banner just ahead.  In the hot afternoon sun, the impressively long parade snaked into the village and past the cottage where the martyrs used to meet, before returning to the festival site.  Local people sat out with drinks and picnics to watch the parade pass by. 

By the time we returned to the festival site, our minds were turning to the long journey home and, with concerns over Sunday evening M25 traffic, we said our goodbyes and hit the road. As it turned out, the journey home was uninterrupted, and we were back in time to have a much-needed cold beer.  It had been a terrific day; one of the most memorable of all of the days out na-mara has had. 

Many thanks to Keith Hatch for the original invitation to perform at the festival.  Thanks also to Jill Beed and her fellow crew members for looking after us so well throughout the day and to Craig, Hugh and MC Tatty Smart for setting us up so well for a performance that will stay in our memory for a very long time. We sincerely hope to perform again at a future Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and we wish it every success in the years ahead. 

It is always a pleasure to visit the Baldock and Letchworth Folk, Blues and Roots Club.  Over the years we have made some lovely friends there who have always been very appreciative of our music.  So, on a warm summer’s night it was great to see so many turn out to see the mighty Bob Fox perform, with us as support. 

We arrived nice and early to watch club organisers Alan and Sue Hewson hard at work with Bob on a thorough sound check.    The growing hubbub from audience members in the adjacent bar indicated that the turnout was going to be good and when the doors were opened the performance venue filled up very quickly.

Rob and I opted to play acoustically and from the very start it was lovely to see audience members enjoying our material and heartily singing along.  This was particularly evident on Navajos & Pirates and Garden of England.

Bob performed a range of material both from his traditional and contemporary repertoire and from the War Horse production that he played such a key role in.  With a great voice, great guitar and now, courtesy of his involvement in War Horse, excellent melodeon playing, he put on a very fine show.

It was a real pleasure to chat with Bob at various stages in the evening and we would like to thank him for his kind words on our performance and our song writing.  They were much appreciated. 

Many thanks to Al and Sue Hewson for the invitation to play again at Baldock and Letchworth and we hope to be back at the club in the not too distant future. Thanks also to our friends at the club for their continuing support and for buying copies of Navajos & Pirates.

We had the pleasure of spending a lovely evening yesterday in the company of a welcoming audience and three very friendly and talented young musicians in the form of headliners, Jaywalkers. 

na-mara had last performed at Dunton Folk at a Christmas-themed event back in December 2013 when supporting the hugely entertaining Blast from the Past.  On that dark December evening it hadn’t been quite so easy to see what a pretty setting Dunton Folk takes place in.  This time St Mary Magdalene Church in the pretty village of Dunton looked resplendent bathed in late evening sunshine.

We managed to arrive around 6.45pm, just in time to catch the very end of the Jaywalkers’ sound check; there was clearly a great night ahead of us.   The seemingly indefatigable Simon Bailes, club organiser and co-editor of Unicorn magazine (as well as a dozen other things besides) was already hard at work on the sound system.  As the Jaywalkers went off to grab some food, Simon quickly sorted us out sound wise leaving us a little time to catch up on each other’s news. Set in the nave of the church, the acoustic at Dunton Folk offers a fine natural reverb and it was a pleasure to be back playing there again. 

The show started promptly at 8.00pm and we provided a 30-minute sampler of the various themes within our music with a couple of our French translations, a couple of our own songs plus some Galician dance tunes.  Encouragingly from the stage, we could see feet tapping and heads nodding in the pews and during a subsequent break in the Jaywalkers set, we struck up a number of pleasant conversations with audience members interested in the stories being told in our songs.

Jaywalkers then came on and showed why it is no wonder they are making such great strides with their music. Accompanied by virtuoso mandolin, fiddle and double base, with great vocals and harmonies, they played a range of tune styles, traditional songs plus some of their own compositions.  Off stage they showed themselves to be very friendly and approachable.  They were happy to chat when we arrived and supportive when we had finished. 

As Rob was driving that night and we were on support duties only, there was even the chance to sample the excellent real ale and famous Dunton cider that was on sale at the break – how come my family church back in Middlesbrough all those years ago never had that?

We wish Jaywalkers every success and albeit we won’t quite cross paths with them at the Cambridge Folk Festival this year, we hope to meet them again in the not too distant future. Finally, we would like to thank Simon for his invitation to again play at the excellent Dunton Folk and we very much hope to visit the club again sometime soon.

Performers came from far and near to play folk music of every description and make a great night of music at Royston Folk Club last night. 

For its showcase evening, the Royston Folk Club uses a delightful old room, complete with wooden beams and an excellent bar area off to one side.   It also has a large room elsewhere in the complex of buildings that make up The Old Bull Inn in Royston in north Hertfordshire for its concert evenings.

Having arrived early for our sound check, it was very nice to meet club organisers Mark Gamon and Chris Walls and to chat with fellow performers.  It was doubly nice to then watch as extra chairs were brought into what was already a sizeable room, to accommodate a large and growing audience.  It was lovely to see that some of our friends from other folk clubs had come across to Royston to watch us play.

On what was a hot and humid evening, local hosts Mark Gamon and Nick Blishen kicked the evening off in style with an original song followed by a Richard Shindell song, being joined in the latter by fine local fiddler, Matt Kelly.

We followed on with songs Three Bonny Ships and Garden of England which I’m pleased to report were both well received.  In turn, we were then followed by Liz Cotton from Cambridge who played two of her hilarious and cleverly constructed songs commenting on modern day sexual mores. 

Then, quite appropriately given the sultriness of the evening, we watched the excellent local guitar-fiddle duo of Matt Kelly and Gary Woolley perform some Cajun and American folk classics.

 Finally, to take everyone up to the break, singer-songwriter Ian Roland, who had travelled up from Brighton, performed a couple of his own songs, deftly picking his 12-string guitar. 

After a break for buying raffle tickets, CDs and the all important cold beers, the format was repeated, with each act again doing a couple of numbers.  For the second set, we played a couple of munieras and Navajos & Pirates.

Clearly, this rapid switching of acts puts a lot of pressure on the sound man, but Chris Walls was more than up to the job, producing a great sound for each act in turn as they mounted the stage to perform.

The evening was finally brought to a close by the excellent Red Dirt Band who had travelled in from various far-flung points in Devon and Dorset.   Consisting of singer/songwriter, Russell Middleton, double bassist, Ian Turner, and violinist, Chloe Box, Red Dirt provided an excellent set comprising self –penned and traditional songs.  With great stage presence and musicality, they brought the evening to a close in style and deserved the calls for an encore. Listen out for them!

As we turned for home, we could see that the weather had finally broken.  There had been no thunder and lightning, but soft rain was now falling and the air was mercifully cooler.  However, the warmth of the evening was still very much with us.  We had made some new friends, both at the club and amongst the performers, and we would very much like to congratulate club organisers Mark and Chris and their team at Royston Folk Club on what they have managed to build up in such a short space of time, and we very much hope to visit the club again in the not too distant future.

What a great time we all had at St Edith Folk last Friday. 

As evidenced by the terrific programme of artists visiting, St Edith Folk is a first class folk venue and Rob and I were extremely pleased to be invited to perform there.  Built in the late 19^th century and situated on Kemsing village High Street in Kent, the venue for the folk club, St Edith Hall, had been used as a field hospital in World War 1.  It now forms the centrepiece of a collection of community facilities and resources and the hall itself, with its good sized stage, excellent acoustics and lighting and with a real ambience to it, makes an excellent place to play and hear folk music.  Indeed, with a bar next door selling a full range of beverages including locally brewed real ales, it has everything a good folk club needs. 

Rob and I spent the morning of the concert just checking everything was OK with the p.a. system and having a rehearsal. Then, after a quick lunch, we set off around the M25 for Kemsing, near Sevenoaks.  We were keen to be there and to have plenty of time to get everything set up and have a decent sound check – and for once, the roads were kind and we arrived in good time.

Throughout the afternoon and evening we were wonderfully looked after by the St Edith Folk team. Mary, Mark, Ed and Keith could not have been more welcoming and that kindness began with the offer of a much needed cuppa while setting up.  The set and sound check went well and we retired to the green room for another cuppa and something to eat.

Support act Simon Stanley-Ward arrived around 6.00pm and we quickly carried out a sound check for him. Simon is an excellent young Americana performer who plays a great range of his own songs plus very occasional covers. He has a great voice, plays guitar really well and is an excellent communicator with the audience.  We couldn’t have wished for better support to get the audience warmed up.  His is definitely a name to look out for.

At 7.30pm the doors opened and a sizeable audience began to take their seats.  It was very nice to see some local friends in the audience, including Joe Whittaker from the increasingly well-known shanty crew, Swinging the Lead.

Simon went on at 8.00pm and got the evening off to a great start.  Simon has a wonderful energy to him and the audience was infectiously enthused by it.  It was no surprise that he came off to deserved mighty applause at the end of his set.

After a quick break and rearrangement of the stage, we then went on for our first set and, from the start it was encouraging to see feet tapping and heads nodding across the audience. As well as being a great listening club, club members were also very willing to join in choruses and the first set went well and flew by.  Pleasingly our new song Black Widows is really settling into the set now.

Having gone out to say hello to our friends in the audience, it was nice to receive both kind words and encouragement from other audience members.

The second set seemed to go just as well and, after ending the evening with our song Navajos & Pirates, we left the stage to rousing calls for an encore.  This was something we were very pleased to provide and, in response, we played our revamped DADGAD-based version of The Maid of Culmore.

Again, we went into the hall to say our goodbyes to friends and audience members, and it was very gratifying to receive such supportive and positive comments.

As the hall emptied, we drifted back to the stage to pack away our gear for the trip home.  How wonderful then, to be offered a livening and extremely welcoming cup of coffee for the road while doing so.  The St Edith Folk team’s kindness didn’t stop there. They helped us get the gear back to the car and then guided us through the country roads to show us the best way back to the M25. 

Many thanks to club organiser Keith Stockman, his enthusiastic and hard-working team and the audience at St Edith Folk for welcoming us so heartily to your club. We had a great evening with you and we sincerely hope to make a return to the club again at some time in the future.

It was a real pleasure to be back at the Ely Folk Club.  We have visited the club a number of times over the years and have always enjoyed our time there.

Fearing rush hour motorway traffic, we made our way across to Ely reasonably early and, our worries having not materialised, we were rewarded with the chance to have a brief walk around the magnificent Cathedral precinct. Ely is a town of great beauty.

We returned to the car, picked up our gear and made our way into The Old Dispensary on St Mary’s Street, the very pleasant home of Ely Folk Club.  As we entered and said our hellos to club organisers, we were treated to a few seconds of the night's main act finishing their warm up and it sounded great.  We were in Ely to play a support slot for the wonderfully talented Miranda Sykes and Rex Preston who, for this and a number of gigs on this tour, were joined by the extremely skilled guitarist Grant Gordy, from New York.  

It was obvious by the number of chairs being put out that the Club was expecting a big night and so it proved to be.

After a very kind introduction from MC for the evening Andy Wall, we took to the floor for our half hour set.  All of the material we played was from our new Navajos & Pirates album and took the audience on a metaphorical tour of western Europe. We started with some French and Breton songs.  We followed these with some Galician dance tunes and ended with two or our own songs – one about England, the other about Germany.  All were well received and, as we made way for the main act to come on, it was a great honour to have a member of the audience ask if we could be given the space to do another.  The club organisers were fine with that as were members of the main act. So, we obliged with a brief encore, playing 'Time Wears Awa', a song from Scotland.

Along with audience members, Rob and I were then treated to two excellent sessions from Miranda, Rex and Grant.  Three immensely talented musicians, very much in a groove together, they treated us to a rich array of contemporary and traditional music from the UK and North America.  We had Grant's guitar weaving intricately and expertly with Rex's mandolin and bouzouki playing, with Miranda's sometimes sonorous sometimes thumping double bass adding a whole extra dimension to the soundscape.  All of this was topped off with fine vocals and harmonies.

After the final encore died away, we gathered our gear and turned for home, saying our goodbyes.  We had had a great night.  We'd played well, been warmly received and we’d seen an excellent headliner act.  Our fears for the roads might not have come to pass on the way to Ely but Vexatia, the Goddess of motorway slip road closures, still had a trick up her sleeve.  Thankfully our mood was good as we listened to a North American podcast of Galician music featuring, amongst others, some of our music.  We were happy to go home via the back roads.

Many thanks to Andy Wall, Ruth Bramble and all our friends at Ely Folk Club for the warm welcome and we sincerely hope to be back in Ely playing music again soon.

My oh my, what a great night it was at the Redbourn Folk Club! The Old School Room at the back of the Hollybush pub was full to bursting and all were in fine voice. It was tremendous to see so many of our friends and supporters amongst the club regulars and was it was doubly nice to see so many talented musicians there to provide the floor spots.

Co-organiser Malcolm Hobbs kicked the evening off with his wonderful version of Irish traditional song, A Kiss in the Morning Early. He then followed it by delivering a truly excellent rendition of na-mara's relatively unknown 'come all ye', In Harmony Resound, which certainly helped flex the audience's vocal chords for the night ahead.

More floor singers then followed, including the runner up in the recent Maidstone Folk Club song competition and an excellent guitar-fiddle duo.

By the time we went on, the room was chock-a-bloc full.  At the first chorus song in our set, Avery and the Merchants of Bristol, it was clear everyone was very much up for a sing song, with great harmonies readily supplied by Malcolm and others.  By the time we ended the set with Black Widows, everyone was involved in the refrain and the night was in full swing.

It was a busy break catching up with friends and with regulars interested in our subject material.  It also became clear that some people had put themselves to substantial trouble to make the journey to see us play and that was very humbling.

A rolling set of floor spots started the second half of the evening. These included a penny whistle player and a group of guitarists and fiddlers combining to create a number of different line ups and sounds - all most entertaining, especially the song ‘The Good Ship Kangaroo’.

We then took the stage to deliver our second set which is well supplied with chorus songs in English, Scots and in French which everyone engaged with heartily, and I am delighted to report we ended the night to major applause and requests for an encore.  This we were, of course, delighted to provide and, as at The Maltings, we played the night out on a quieter note with our DADGAD version of The Maid of Culmore.

Many thanks to all those who turned out to see us play at Redbourn and to Malcolm, Jenny and all those in charge of running this manifestly vibrant and welcoming folk club. We very much hope to return to the club in the not too distant future and sincerely hope we can repeat the fun we had this time around.

It was very nice to be making a return to St Neots Folk Club. From the very beginning of na-mara the club, led by Roger and Patti, has always been very supportive of what we do. 

This was our first trip back to St Neots since featuring in the folk festival there two summers previous. We arrived early and had just finished setting up when Patti, Roger and other club regulars arrived.  The room proceeded to fill quickly and it was very nice to renew acquaintances with a number of the club members we had met on previous visits.  It was also very heartening to see friends of ours from Cambridge and Baldock and Letchworth Folk Clubs travelling some distance to come along and see us.

With songs very much reflecting his dry wit, Roger kicked the evening off with three songs of May.  The audience - always a great singing audience - was clearly in fine voice.

We then did our first set and it was lovely to hear the choruses coming back to us, hearty and strong.  Our song The Black Widows certainly went down well and it was extremely interesting to talk later on with a former resident of Seaham Harbour where the most heinous of all the Black Widow murderers, Mary Ann Cotton, was the subject of schoolyard rhymes well into the 20^th Century.

Singer-songwriter Bob Hines, runner up in last year’s Watford Folk Club song competition, kicked off the second half of the evening with three self-penned numbers.  With a lovely voice, great guitar work and a beautiful Martin guitar, his set was very well delivered indeed.

We started our second set with some muineiras and finished it with a series of songs with one line and longer choruses that the audience quickly mastered.  For an encore we played our DADGAD-refashioned version of The Maid of Culmore which seemed to meet with favour 

As people dispersed, both Rob and I had lively conversations with audience members about our instruments, song and all manner of folk-related topics.  It was particularly nice to catch up again with fellow performer and top quality guitarist Paul Cherrington who had popped along.

We eventually took our leave of Roger, Patti and Bob and turned for home.  The A1 has been surprisingly benign to us in recent times .(...”its quiet...too damn quiet”....) and we were back before midnight.

Many thanks to Roger and Patti for again extending an invitation for us to play at the splendid St Neots Folk Club.  We wish them every success as they move beyond their 50^th(!) birthday.  We also hope they have a great folk festival this summer – great acts and a wonderful ceilidh are amongst the many things planned.