Ever since na-mara formed, we have been travelling up the A1 to play at the Baldock and Letchworth Folk Club and, as a result, have become close friends with club organisers Alan and Sue Hewson.  We have also made a lot of good mates amongst club regulars there.  So, there was a party atmosphere when we visited this time around and it was lovely to see so many of our friends coming out to hear us.

Formal support for the evening was provided by talented four-piece Kara, fronted by the seemingly indefatigable Daria Kulesh. It had been a while since we had seen Kara and it was easy to see how a busy gigging schedule has helped them really mould their act.  With a nice combination of hammer dulcimer, guitar, accordion and drum, with dramatic vocals, they provided a lovely mix of self penned material and traditional Russian songs and tales put to music.

For those who haven’t yet visited the club, it is held at The Orange Tree pub in Baldock in a nice intimate space with one of the friendliest and most supportive landlords we have ever come across.   The audience was in fine voice and were more than willing to join in with our choruses, and when it boasts fine folk singers like Malcolm Hobbs, great harmonies are guaranteed.  Both halves of our performance seemed to go very well and a few of those who hadn’t heard us play were keen to buy CDs – always a good sign.

Thanks to Alan, Sue and all at the Baldock and Letchworth Folk Club for the warm welcome and longstanding friendship.

Back in June 2013, we had the pleasure of supporting Bob Fox at the Great kNight Folk Club in Northampton and were delighted shortly afterwards to receive an invitation from club organiser Andrew Wintersgill to return to the club as the featured artist.

The original invitation to support Bob Fox had come through fellow club committee member, Kevin T Ward who had seen us play previously at Rugby Roots.  So, it was great news to hear that he was going to be our MC for the evening.  Not only is Kevin a very busy musician these days but also, given our interests and his compendious knowledge of Breton and other Celtic based music, he is always a joy to talk to.

Support act for the evening were The Doughboys Three – three members of the well-known and well-regarded Northamptonshire Cajun/Zydeco band, Ock ‘n Dough.  With fiddle, guitar and an intriguing array of percussion (including a wearable washboard resembling a suit of armour) The Doughboys Three gave everyone an excellent half hour of Cajun and self-penned, traditional-style, folk music.   Good playing and, in the final number particularly, some great vocal harmonies got the evening off to an excellent start.

This was followed by Kevin giving the audience a very lovely, thoughtful and well-informed introduction to na-mara.  The Great kNight audience is an excellent listening audience, discerning and very attentive.  They were also very willing to get involved in singing along with any choruses in our material.

We brought ‘When I Took My Horse to Water’ back into the set that evening and it was clear that many were greatly moved by it and it is pleasing to report that the new muñeiras in the set are bedding down well.  We are also currently playing both ‘Only for Three Months’ and ‘The Silver Duro’ in the set. This allows audiences to get insight into both the parting of the Basque children from their parents in 1937 and their subsequent reunion.  Following comments after the show, it was clear that understanding of the final resolution of the story was greatly appreciated by many. Before concluding with our encore, Kevin finished the evening’s formal proceedings with some very kind words indeed about our music.

Many thanks to Andrew, Kevin and all those who came along to see us on the evening and we can’t wait to return for another Great kNight in the future.

Loughton Folk Club is a well run, highly active, and welcoming place to play.  It has a fine room upstairs at the Loughton Club which manages to accommodate a good number of people without losing any of the intimacy needed for folk music.  Run by John Hart and others, it has always been supportive of our music and has an excellent track record of embracing artists from nearby areas as well as more established, national, artists.  It also has a proud record of fund raising through its ‘nights of protest’ and other events.

As readers of our blog will know, we like to get to gigs early and this approach proved a lifesaver for our night at Loughton Folk Club; the motorway traffic was atrocious and, if we had set out any later, it could have been a concern.  However, mercifully the log jam eased and we still managed to get to the club in sufficient time to set up before most club members arrived.

The banter in the Loughton Folk Club is always excellent, the atmosphere is very friendly and, in our experience, the quality of performances by club regulars is consistently high and so it proved once more the night we visited including performances by, amongst others, John Hart himself and by the wonderful Steve O’Donoghue (whom I am a big fan of). 

We were supported on the evening by the newly formed trio called TRED.  Whilst it was true that the band had only just formed and this might have been their first ever performance, but its individual members were all very experienced and highly talented, counting among their number David Delarre of Mawkin fame.  Excellent musicians all, they played some great tune-sets and I think we can be confident of hearing more of them in the months and years ahead.

Our own also sets went down very well and, at the end of the evening, MC John Hart said he felt confident he would be waking up the following day with our song ‘Navajos and Pirates’ in his head.  Much to our delight, the audience at Loughton also seemed more than happy to join us on a wide range of choruses and, as is often the case, we received some excellent feedback from audience members about how intrigued they were by the stories we tell in song.

Many thanks to John, Jennie and all the organisers and club members at Loughton Folk Club, and all best wishes to Steve O’Donoghue, the other club singers at Loughton and to TRED.

We made sure we were on the road bright and early to travel across Hertfordshire to play once more at the excellent Stortfolk.  Organisers Jon and Hilary McNamara (no relation) and Stortfolk club members have always been most welcoming and appreciative of our work, and it was great to be seeing them all again.

An early arrival allowed us a brief time to have a wander around the centre of this very pretty town before the folk club got underway.  After about 30 minutes exploring we returned to the car, picked up our instruments and made it over to the club.

Stortfolk is held in a cosy, garden facing, room in the British Legion club which filled up steadily to provide an intimate space for the evening.  A number of club regulars provided a variety of folk and songs and whistle tunes, and Jon played one of his speciality music hall songs.  All very enjoyable.

Our own set proved very popular and we had a lot of great feedback through the evening. Indeed, one of the club members quietly asked me at the end of the evening whether I was aware that we were her favourite folk band.  It really doesn't get better than that and makes all the hard work writing and rehearsing very worthwhile!

We mentioned that a lot of our material that evening would be on our forthcoming album and Jon very generously asked us if we would return to the club later in the year to promote and make the album available to club members.  This is something we would of course be delighted to do.

Many thanks to Jon, Hilary and all at Stortfolk for again being such wonderful hosts.  We look forward to returning later in the year.

There is nothing more pleasing for a band than when a club gets in contact directly to invite you to play. Terry Parsons from the Newport Folk Club had reviewed the video material on our website, thought we might fit the bill for club members and had contacted us through our web-site.  Naturally, we were very pleased to accept his invitation and make the trip to south Wales.  We had played in Maesteg in May 2012 and been keen to return to the area ever since.

The Newport Folk Club is not only a friendly and welcoming club it is also a highly professional club. Throughout the whole process, from the initial contact through to giving us the best possible advice for getting home quickly after the gig, Terry, his fellow club members and his family looked after us exceedingly well. 

The People’s Club, as it is known to its members, takes place in a pleasant room and provides its performers with a very nice sound system and skilled sound technicians to help get the best sound possible.  Given we are not yet as well known in the local area as we would like to be, it was encouraging to see such a big turnout.  It was also very nice for me to see some friends in the audience who live locally.

The club numbers some excellent singers and musicians amongst its members and they were very much in evidence through the evening – skilled guitarists and powerful voices. 

We performed well and the mix of own songs, tunes and song translations provided the audience with a lot of material new to them.  We were able to roll out the new material we had been working hard on in the winter months and during both the interval and after the performance, we received a lot of nice feedback from members of the audience.

With Terry’s expert guidance, we made a very quick return to the M4 and, buoyed by an exciting gig, the long drive home passed very quickly.  Frustratus, the God of motorway diversions, seemed to be having one of his nights off. 

Many thanks to Terry and all the members of Newport Folk Club for their hospitality and appreciation of our music.  We hope we get the chance to return to ‘The People’s Club’ in the coming years. 

The Herga Folk Club holds a very fond place in our hearts and it was lovely to have the opportunity to perform there again. After a lengthy period of hard work in the recording studio between January and March, our visit to Herga marked the start of a busy schedule of headliner gigs for us over the remainder of 2014.  It was great to be out playing our full set again; the chance to do so in such a welcoming environment was doubly appreciated. 

As many people know, the Herga Folk Club is and has long been blessed with excellent singers and I’m pleased to say that they were much in evidence on the evening we were there. Floor singers sang a range of poignant and amusing songs covering a very wide array of subjects.  This included the meandering geography of Bournemouth.

For our part, the evening went very well and gave us the chance to roll out some new material, in particular some new Spanish tunes that we had been working hard on.  Herga’s instinct for singing also meant that the audience were extremely quick to pick up song choruses and accompany us.  Our song, Navajos and Pirates, seemed to go down particularly well

Locally –based photographer, Trevor Burrows, was in the audience and took some excellent photographs of us playing.  Since the gig, Trevor has sent copies through to us and collectively they stand as a wonderful memento of a lovely evening.  Many thanks, Trevor.

Similarly, many thanks to Mike Sparks and all his fellow committee members at the Herga Folk Club for being so welcoming and so supportive of our music over the past years.

After deliberately spending much of January and February close to home, recording and mixing material for our new album, it felt like a nice return to business as usual as we got back in the car and on the road again for our first gig of 2014. 

Very kindly, when a slot became vacant to support Keith Donnelly at Ely Folk Club, Club organiser Ruth Bramley extended us the invitation to play.  Having last worked with Keith at Bromyard Folk Festival six months earlier, this seemed an excellent way to renew both our acquaintance with him and with Ely Folk Club.

Once we had managed to escape a traffic-clogged St Albans, the journey to Ely was quick and we arrived in plenty of time to tune up, chat with club regulars and catch up with Keith’s news before the evening started. It was certainly very nice to see the club in its new surroundings – a nice sized room with drinks available from a nearby pub..

In advance of a forthcoming extensive series of gigs, the evening afforded us an opportunity to try out live some new material we had been working up and recording.  In particular, it was a first outing for some new Asturian dance tunes.

As always with a support spot, the time on stage flew by.  At half time and the end of the show, we were congratulated by a number of those in the healthy sized audience.  Particularly pleasing was the very positive response to our own songs in the set, Navajos and Pirates and The Garden of England.  Fast and furious as they are, the new dance tunes also earned us a whoop or two at the end.

Keith was on good form with his songs, stories and jokes.  Sadly, with the very final guitar flourish of the first half, he ripped a nail clean off his right index finger.  It was clearly a very sore injury and he was in considerable discomfort.  However, trooper to the end, he quickly put together a second half of strummed rather than picked guitar, a cappella and storytelling content and, though in obvious pain, kept the audience well amused until closing time.

Many thanks to all at Ely Folk Club.  The surroundings may be new, but the welcome was just as warm as always. 

This was na-mara’s last gig of 2013 and it proved a splendid way to finish the year.  

Dunton Folk is a relatively new club. It is uncompromising in its focus on high quality acts and has seen a star-studded list of guests perform there already in its short history.  This evening was a Christmas celebration with top quality musicians Blast from the Past, and we were playing support.

We were very pleased to receive the invitation to play at the club. Perhaps some might not associate na-mara with evenings of this nature, but we are in no way 'bah humbugs'.  We were readily able to select a nice mix of more poignant material and some lively and rumbustious ballads and dance tunes from our repertoire.  However, to manage expectations and also to avoid any potential confusion in the audience, we joked up front that we were the 'office party' before the Christmas party. Christmas would begin properly when the office party was over.

The club takes place in a beautiful church, with (very) good local ale and cider available alongside soft drinks.  There is a p.a. for those who choose to use it but, on this evening, neither performing act did as the acoustics were wonderful in their own right and fitted the ambience for the evening.  It is also a manifestly very well run and welcoming club.  From the moment of our arrival at the venue, we were well looked after, informed throughout as to what was happening next, and our needs were regularly enquired after.  In short, it was a joy to perform there.

We also had the genuine pleasure of meeting with the Blast from the Past trio.  It turned out that, some years previous, we had met frontman Chris Green at Al and Sue Hewson's Baldock and Letchworth Folk Club, when he was playing with the well remembered and sadly missed folk trio Isambarde.

Blast from the Past are consummate professionals.  They play and sing superbly and their stage presence and craft is second to none.  They put on a great show of carols, songs, tunes and ancient stories and, despite this being their thirteenth night in a 27 night tour, they were friendly, approachable and, towards us, respectful to our music.  They were interested to hear what we were playing and said some very kind words at the end of the evening.  In short, they were a model main act and some others, who I am too polite to name, could assuredly learn a lesson or two from them.

The audience and the organisers seemed very much to enjoy the na-mara set and gave us some great feedback at the interval and the end of the show.  They were also rapt throughout the two sets from Blast from the Past.  If ever there was a cup of good cheer to put a smile in your face before Christmas, this was it.  I only hope I can retain the warm feeling through the usual seasonal onslaught of Noddy Holder and Wizard.

Very many thanks to organisers Simon Bailes and Andy Barwell for the invitation to play at Dunton Folk and for looking after us so well throughout the evening.  We sincerely hope that we make a return to the club in the not too distant future.  Finally, thanks also to our friend David who came out on a cold Saturday evening to see us perform.

Through local folk activist Alison Macfarlane na-mara had been honoured with an invitation to finish off a fund-raising evening at The Maltings Arts Theatre in St Albans.  The event was aimed at raising monies for the casting of a bronze statue in honour of local resident, Tom Watters, who had served bravely as an ambulance driver in the Spanish Civil War. Born in Glasgow, Tom had left his job as a corporation bus driver in the city to go to Spain in 1936 as a member of the Scottish ambulance unit. When the war finished he came to live in St Albans.

Given the focus of the evening we did our very best to choose a set that reflected our longstanding links with Spain and the Spanish Civil War.  This meant that, for the first time in a long time, we played all four of the tracks from our 'Songs of the Spanish Civil War’ EP.  Reprising our recent trip to Spain with Ewan McLennan, we also added a rendition of Ewan MacColl's beautiful Jamie Foyers.  To this we added The Garden of England and, to reflect what was going on in the Ruhr valley towns around the time of the war in Spain, we finished the evening with Navahos and Pirates.

The evening kicked off with a gentle set by one of the stalwarts of the Redbourn Folk Club, Linda Fryd.  She was followed by local band GBH - the initials of the three players in the trio - who gave a great performance, including a superb version of Richard Thompson's Beating the Retreat. 

Backstage, it was a real pleasure to meet and talk with Linda and GBH.  We know Linda from the Redbourn Folk Club but, for some reason, we have never met or performed with GBH before but sincerely hope that we do so again soon - nice guys playing excellent music.

Through the evening there was a moving speech by sculptor Frank Casey who also read some words from a transcript of a conversation with Tom Watters shortly before he died last year.  Throughout his talk, Frank emphasised the humanity and wisdom of Tom.

Our own set seemed to go well and the audience of around 45 people listened intently throughout and said many kind things to us both when the evening had finished. We had planned to get everyone back on stage at the end for a rendition of The Valley of Jarama but, sadly, we were right up against the closing time for the theatre.

Many thanks to Alison and the other organisers involved in the evening.  Thanks also to Nick and his team on the p.a. system who did a great job.  Thanks to Linda and GBH for their encouragement and camaraderie throughout the evening but, most of all, thanks to all those who came out on a cold night to support a very worthwhile cause. There is still a long way to go to get the money needed but we very much look forward to seeing a fitting memorial to a brave and principled man gracing the streets of St Albans in the not too distant future.

Reading Folk Club has been supportive to us from our earliest beginnings and it is always a pleasure to return there.  Now based in RISC, the Reading International Solidarity Centre performers at the club can be confident of a good, quiet, airy space to play in, with an appreciative, friendly and attentive audience close up.  There is good food and beers in the wonderful cafe downstairs, and the whole place has an easy going vibe.  Una and Colin, with the help of others, run an excellent club with a nice programme of performers, its own newsletter as well as its own mini book stall. 

The other joy of travelling to play in Reading is to see friends and family.  We have many personal ties with the town and, though not necessarily followers of folk, our pals have been similarly very supportive over the years and they always come out to see us.

Together with club regulars, this meant we had a pleasingly full house for the evening.  Malcolm proved an excellent MC and kicked the proceedings off with a couple of very nice songs – covet not thy MC’s guitar (a Guild) could be the 11^th Commandment.  Malcolm was followed by a trio of musicians playing some very lovely French and British tunes.

Our first set went very well with our version of L’Amant de Nantes was particularly well received. 

At the break, I spoke at length to a gentleman who had picked up on our translated Breton seas-shanty, Three Bonny Ships.  He came to talk to me about the shanty crew of British ex-pats he sings with in Brittany. It certainly sounds like he is having a great time down there, visiting the various festivals and meeting with the French shanty crews.

Malcolm kicked off the second half with another nice song and after some more very nice floorspots  with good vocals and compositions and a very funny song about ‘waking up at Waterloo - we went on for our second set. 

The Readifolk audience is a listening audience but it also one keen to join in and sing.  With their vocal support we had ourselves a very nice second half.  The Garden of England is really maturing into the set now and Navahos and Pirates is proving a wonderful punchy end to the show. 

The audience was kind enough to call for an encore and, with an eye on our next outing, A Spanish Civil War themed fundraising event in our hometown of St Albans, we finished the evening off with our rendition of Ewan McColl’s Jamie Foyers.

It was lovely chatting with club members, close friends and very close family before packing up and setting off home.  Eventually, we said our goodbyes to the truly lovely Una and Colin and hit the road. Poor old Rob was driving but I had a beer stashed away for the journey – oh yes, its rock and roll in the tour bus you know!