Na-Mara’s penultimate gig, our last “away match” outside St. Albans as one wag put it, was another great evening. We were invited to perform a shared evening with talented music trio Baum, Maggs and Taylor in Steatley, just outside Reading.

We set off in plenty of time to get there and the M25, M40 and the cross-country drive across Oxfordshire and Berkshire went very smoothly. The only slight issue was finding the venue itself. The Morrell Room, historically linked to the brewery of that name, is found along a tiny lane in Streatley. On our first attempt, we missed the lane altogether and, on our second attempt missed it again and ended up in a huge pub, hotel, gym complex next door.  When we did actually find the correct little lane, there was a Sainsbury's van delivering to a house next door to The Morrell Room which caused our driver for the evening, Dave on this occasion, some interesting issues to negotiate whilst trying to park up.

Van gone, we made our way into The Morrell Room.  It is a splendid wood panelled hall with a great acoustic. The room was fully laid out with 70 or so chairs for the evening and the stage was already set out for opening act Baum, Maggs and Taylor, albeit they’d disappeared off somewhere, presumably for food. We took the opportunity of the venue being quiet and empty to nosh our sarnies and essential pre-gig banana.  Not long after, that the room began to fill.

Over time, the room filled to such a point that, by the time for performances to begin, it was standing room only with extra chairs were having to be carried in. By start time, The Morrell Room was full with an excited audience. Amongst the crowd were a range of personal friends and former work colleagues of many years standing, alongside some pals from the folk world, most notably notably for us, the long-standing organisers of Reading folk club, Readifolk, Colin and Una Waters. Indeed, we had people travelling to Streatley from as far afield as London, Portsmouth, Sevenoaks and Oxford to see us perform. What an honour!

Andy Baum from the Baum, Maggs and Taylor trio is an old friend and work colleague of mine and a very fine mandolin player. With Dave Maggs on guitar and Irish bouzouki and Andy Taylor on fiddle, the trio play a wide range of music types; everything from Americana to Swing to Sea Shanties to Spirituals to Jazz. Together, they provided a wonderful hour of music, delivered with fine musicianship and great stage presence.

After a 15-minute break to reset the (acoustic) stage, and for audience members to get themselves another drink, Rob and I were briefly introduced before taking to the stage. This was a lovely listening audience and, albeit not a folk audience, we still had many audience members joining in on the choruses.

I'm pleased to report that we performed well, and the overall set was greatly appreciated. Feedback after the show was excellent.

Since the evening had started at 7:00pm and was effectively finished, including encore, by 9:45pm, we had a little time to stand and talk to audience members, including leading folk musicians Simon mayor and Hilary James, who had kindly come along for the evening. It was a great honour to meet with them. 

Another interesting exchange was with Chris Hawes. Chris has organised a regular music evening in Streatley’s neighbouring village of Goring for over 20 years called Goring Unplugged. He was busy at tonight’s gig advertising the next Goring Unplugged event later in the month and had with him a laminated poster for the evening. Now, as part of preparations for Na-Mara’s upcoming final gig, I have been rootling around in our equivalent of Tutankhamun's tomb - our memorabilia box - and had found something in there that I showed to Chris. It was another laminated poster for Goring Unplugged but for Friday 24^th November 2006 when Na-Mara were on the bill. Chris was as amazed as he was amused.

Baum, Maggs and Taylor are all from the Streatley/Goring area and they were stopping on after the gig for a bite to eat. The spread they laid out once the audience departed from The Morrell Room looked lovely. However, Rob, Dave and I had a long drive home ahead of us.  So, we felt it necessary to decline the kind offer for us to join them. We hope they had a good after gig party.

The return journey, cross-country to the M40, went fine and perhaps the gods were looking favourably on our last late night motorway journey home since they threw up no obstacles for us and we arrived home at a decent time.

Thanks to Andy Baum for organising such a lovely evening. It was great to see him again personally but also to hear him and his colleagues sing and play. Thanks also to all of those who came along to the evening concert, especially those who had travelled such long distances to come and hear Na-Mara play.

And then there were three. That's three last gigs for Na-Mara - and on Rob's birthday too! 

We had kindly been invited to perform a recital as part of a lunchtime classical music series at St Peter’s Church in St Albans and, with an excellent charity cause in mind, we were more than happy to oblige.

Given the five minutes it would take to get us from home to St Peter’s, we met up with friend Dave just before 11:00am and were unpacking and inside the church just after the hour.

Ably assisted by church officers, Carolyn and Reg, we were made most welcome and were able to set up ready for a brief rehearsal in advance of any concert goers arriving. This was a very worthwhile experience as the inbuilt reverb church acoustics often provide can sometimes take a little getting used to.  It is best to familiarise oneself with the soundscape before beginning a performance.

Once content, we then rested and, as a former choirboy a lifetime ago, I guiltily scoffed my pre-gig banana in the Lady Chapel and, together, we waited for our audience to arrive. From 12:30pm onwards the church began to fill. This concert series is generally very well attended and by the time MC for the day, Mike, introduced us,  there were over 100 people in our ‘concert congregation’.

The hour-long concert went well and, as has often been the case when we’ve performed to classical music audiences in the past, the feedback after the event was tremendous. Audience members were highly complementary about our musicality, the variety we provide in our programme and the poignancy of some of the topics we cover.

Rob, Dave and I were able to join audience members and friends in an after concert snack of sandwiches, cake and wine, which afforded the chance to talk further with some very interesting audience members. 

This was a lovely event to participate in and doubly so in the knowledge that it helped raise a reasonable amount of money for a very worthwhile charity. Many thanks to Carolyn Alexander for the invitation to participate in the concert series and to the organisers for their lovely gift of wine given after the performance.

Our return to Chesham Folk Club was the second in our final half dozen gigs for the band. Portentous rainstorms had been sweeping through the local area for what seemed like days, and bad news seemed to rumble along with it. Determined though he was to make the gig, poor old Rob was stricken with discomfort and pain on the morning of the performance and, together, we took the essential decision that, given what he was suffering and the uncertainties over when medics could treat him, I would do the gig solo.

Na-Mara is very much a duo and Rob provides by far and away the majority of the finesse in our performances. So, after taking the above decision, I spent a frantic afternoon rehearsing some alternative songs to cover for our usual instrumentals.

Come 6:45pm, still concerned about Rob and somewhat distracted thinking through how I would approach the gig solo, I set off in the car for the half hour drive to Chesham.

Of course, I needn't have worried. The organisers at Chesham Folk Club were as welcoming of my doing the gig solo as they were of the duo performing. MC for the evening, Roy, quickly put me at my ease and having had chance to chat with some of the regulars at Chesham, I was made to feel much more comfortable. Meeting our old friends David and Sara Pratt again provided a further enormous fillip to my mood and confidence. David and Sara are both huge supporters of Na-Mara’s music with David having written some very positive reviews of our recordings of the years. The fact that they had travelled all the way from Kent, staying overnight nearby in order to catch our concert, certainly had me walking tall.

Chesham Folk Club has some excellent floor singers that, this night, included Peter Nutkin who’d travelled over from the Watford Folk Club. Four singers each did one song before my first set, and then I was on.

For the most part, I stayed with the prepared Na-Mara set list for our autumn ‘tour’, but I needed to make a joke and a feature of occasionally providing a vocalised break in lieu of where Rob would usually have taken the lead. It generally seemed to work. Unbeknownst to most in the audience I also occasionally eclipsed the space where Rob would usually provide a break and continued through with the verses and choruses. In this first half, I replaced one instrumental with the new arrangement that I've been working on for the Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia song Black Muddy River, paying homage to the magnificent version recorded by Norma Waterson.

The first half all went well and, after a short break with more chatting with regulars and with David and Sara, the floor singers returned for another round of songs before I took to the floor again.

Similar to the first half, I cleaved close to the usual Na-Mara second set but took the opportunity to introduce our new song, Father, Oh Father, about the abdominal misdeeds of some priests and the bishops that conspired for them to evade justice.

I'm pleased to report that, overall, the evening went very well, and the audience seemed happy to have had a good singalong.  I even got calls for an encore. So, all in all, I couldn't have been happier.

Thanks to all Chesham Folk Club for the original invitation for Na-Mara to perform and for their sympathy and understanding when only half of the duo was able to turn up. Thanks also to the wonderful David and Sara Pratt for travelling so far to see us perform and for their wonderful support for our music over many years. I'm further pleased to report that, two days after the gig as I write this blog post, Rob seems to be very much on the up and we can focus on both being fit and ready for our forthcoming gig at St Edith Folk in Otford, Kent.

After a summer break, it was time for us to set out on what was to be our final half dozen gigs as Na-Mara. Our first autumn performance was to be at the well-beloved annual mini-folk festival, Folk on the Common, in association with Redbourn Folk Club. 

The event is always held on a Sunday afternoon at the Redbourn Cricket Club on Redbourn Common. The Cricket Club provides the bar, and the parish council sponsors the event, helping to provide an excellent PA system and other facilities like St John’s Ambulance and a BBQ stall. In short, it is a lovely family-oriented, local folk event.

We were honoured to be invited to perform and were sharing the stage with Coventry-based Rob Halligan and Homeward Hie and Watford-based Bathtub Ginn.

Rob and I met together on Sunday morning for a final rehearsal before setting off to Redbourn in the early afternoon. It is only a 10-minute drive to Redbourn common, and it was no surprise that we were the first band to arrive.  It was a pleasure to chat with club organiser Jenny McNaught and fellow folk singers like Julian Mount, as we watched the PA system being put together.

The headliners for the event were Rob Halligan and Homeward Hie and they had by far the most demanding sound check to do. So, we both sat and had ourselves a bit of lunch watching them go through their paces. All very nice.

Bit by bit the audience for the event began to grow as people arrived with their camping chairs, rugs and flasks of tea to enjoy the afternoon. The sky was clear initially but began to cloud over as the afternoon moved on and I’m sure the rugs came in handy. I would estimate a final audience of her own 200 people had assembled by the time MC for the afternoon, fellow Redbourn Folk Club organiser, Malcolm Hobbs, took to the stage for a couple of his trademark songs. What a singer!

Malcolm was followed by main act Rob Halligan and Homeward Hie for their first 50 minutes set, providing an excellent array of self-penned songs and, from memory, a cover of Dougie MacLean’s Ready for the Storm.

We were next on. We had asked for an earlier slot in the afternoon because the date of Folk on the Common was very close to a significant birthday date for me, and I wasn't sure if there would be any birthday celebrations later that evening at home. In the event, there wasn't, but it turned out to be a good idea in the end as Rob, despite playing very well, wasn't feeling quite 100%. Thus, not long after we came off stage, we packed up our bags, said our goodbyes and headed home. Apologies to Bathtub Ginn as we never got to see any of your set but I'm sure it was great. 

Many thanks to Jenny and Malcolm for honouring us with an invite to join Redbourn Folk Club one last time and perform at the very lovely Folk on the Common event 2024.

In my amateur and limited sporting career, I never did manage to score a hat trick. However, our trip to Lost Horizons Music was our third gig in three nights and that counts as a hat trick to me.

Another sunny evening saw us surfing the M25 and M11 to revisit old friends at Lost Horizons Music. Located in a railway arch, the venue, The Wanstead Tap, provides an intimate space to perform in, albeit with occasional distant (but never intrusive) rumblings occurring somewhere up above. The Wanstead Tap is a pleasant little pub with links to a local pizza maker but, when events begin it closes its doors to provide a lovely, listening, environment.

We arrived, as requested, bang on 6:15pm for a sound check. The venue is used regularly for music, literary and comedy events and, as such, the sound system is well established and used, and proprietor of The Wanstead Tap, Dan, knows how to get the very best out of it. As we completed our sound check, our support for the evening, Bitter Sheep, arrived. Hailing from London and Kent, the guitar and banjo sounded lovely during the sound check.

Sound checks complete, we all repaired to the tables set up outside The Wanstead Tap for a snack and a drink in the evening sunshine. One glorious surprise was to see the one and only Steve O'Donoghue calling in to say ‘hello’ and have a pint. Readers of this blog will know that Rob and I have the highest possible regard for Steve's songwriting prowess. We first met him at the Loughton Folk Club but, as Steve explained, these days he's enjoying listening to music rather than writing. However, he mentioned that he is still juggling ideas and rhymes. So, we live in hope that those ideas and rhymes form a future raft of great songs from a truly great songwriter.

Whilst chatting, we heard from Steve and Lost Horizons Music organisers, Paul and Trish, that the phenomenon that is Robb Johnson was performing a free gig that evening in nearby Walthamstow and that this would likely prove a competing attraction for potential audience members. That, coupled with it being the Pride march in central London, European Nations football on the telly and it being such a blisteringly beautiful sit-and-have-a-beer-in-the-garden evening, did conspire to keep numbers down a little. It was, therefore,  doubly encouraging when half of a dozen of our friends from the Loughton Folk Club and the international Brigades Memorial Trust turned up to bolster numbers for the evening.

After delaying the start time slightly to allow more people to arrive, Bitter Sheep kicked the evening off with a half hour set of instrumentals and traditional songs. These were all beautifully performed, with sweet and tuneful harmonies.

Then, after a 15-minute break to recharge glasses, Rob and I went on. Lost horizons Music is a concert venue rather than a folk club and this meant we were going to be playing a 75-90 minute set straight through. This was our first time with such an arrangement. So, I will confess to being a little worried that energy levels might drop in the second half. However, the pre-gig sandwich and banana did the trick, and I need not have worried. Indeed, such was our engagement that I was shocked to see we had done a 75-minute set and still had about 25 minutes of material left. Part of the reason for this was us inserting some Spanish Civil War songs into the usual set. Anyway, Rob and I quickly reviewed our remaining setlist and plotted a course to end on around 90 minutes' worth of material ….. but with still enough puff left for an encore of Maid of Culmore.

The reaction from the small but perfectly formed audience was wonderful. They seemed to have enjoyed the concert immensely and, as we slowly packed away our gear, we had lots of conversations with audience members who’d loved the show before tumbling out into the balmy late June evening.

This part of London is well known to Rob. So, he was able to take over the driving and guide us home via the quickest route, round the North Circular and onto the M1. It was a late arrival home but, sod it, it was still a lovely evening and so, for the second night running, I poured myself a beer and took it and my book into the garden for a half hour wind down before turning in. 

Many thanks to Paul, Trish and Dan at Lost Horizons Music for looking after us so well on the evening and we wish them, The Wanstead Tap and Bitter Sheep all the very best for the future.

In times past, Na-Mara have enjoyed performing at both the Colindale and the Barnet Folk Clubs in London. After the tragic early death of Barnet Folk Club organiser, JJ Dunne, in 2020, the two clubs merged to become the Colindale Barnet Folk Club. The new club, now organised by Mark Mulrooney, is based at The Bull Theatre in Barnet and usually meets on the 3rd Friday of every month.

Na-Mara were originally booked to perform at the folk club on Friday 21st June 2024. However, as the theatre had need of the folk club space that evening it was agreed that, with others, we would showcase the Colindale Barnet Folk Club at the first evening of the 2024 East Barnet Festival the following Friday, with our venue being The Big Top. Roll up roll up, i hear you say. 

So, leaving our clown costumes behind, we set off on a beautiful summer evening for the short trip to East Barnet under the clearest of blue skies. It looked like a lovely evening and that is very much how it turned out to be.

After some brief fun and games actually getting the car onto the festival site, we were able to park up reasonably close to The Big Top. The festival, with its fairground attractions and it's mainstage, were in full spate as Rob, Dave and I carried our gear to the big top... And very big it was! We had ourselves a stage and about 100 seats already set up and, for the second night running, the luxury of a terrific PA system manned by sound techs who really knew what they were doing.

Delayed a little bit getting onto the site, our sound check needed to be done quickly and efficiently so that the floor singers who were doing the first of what was to be a two-hour concert could have the same care afforded to their sound as was given to us.

In the dark of The Big Top, lit by stage lights only, the club singers from Colindale Barnet Folk Club, supplemented with singers from the mighty Bowes Park Folk Club, provided a very pleasant hour of traditional classics and self-penned songs. Well done to Jo Swinhoe, Mark Mulrooney, Ian Roland and others for their excellent contributions.

Our own one-hour set went down very well. With the spotlights shining from behind the audience and the distance between the audience and stage, it wasn't easy to gauge how engaged the audience were. However, we could see plenty of toes tapping and heads nodding and the feedback at the end of the show from fellow performers and audience members was very upbeat and positive.

The Big Top was emptied of audience and sound text by the time we'd said our goodbyes and packed up our gear. However, there were no holdups getting off the festival site or on the way home and, finishing at 9:00 PM, I for one was home in plenty of time for a glass of beer in the cool of a summer's evening in the garden before turning in for the night.

Many thanks to Mark Mulrooney of Colindale Barnet folk club and Johnny Siddall of The Bull Theatre for the invitation to perform in The Big Top at the East Barnet Festival and similar thanks to all those who came along to listen through the evening.

It was a bright summer evening when I picked Rob up from the station and we set off for a special, “double header”, gig with the wonderful Daria Kulesh and Tristan Seume at Uxbridge Folk Club. 

Naturally, the M25 was busy at rush hour but it kept moving and, through a clever cut through the Middlesex green belt, we arrived in good time at the Uxbridge Folk Club. The club is hosted in the Uxbridge Royal Navy Association Hut, a colourful venue, stacked to the brim with all manner of naval memorabilia both poignant and often humorous (try the gents' toilets, or the “Jacks” as it is signed, to see what I mean!).

Having arrived early, we sat outside in the warm sunshine having our pre gig sarnie and banana. There we met our very good friend, Dave Artus, who was MC-ing for the evening, and the club organiser, Terry Dean.

The Uxbridge Folk Club is blessed with a decent PA system and an excellent sound technician, Ian, who knows how to get the best out of it and the performers using it. With Daria and Tristan now arrived, the sound checks could begin. These were done with the minimum of fuss. It was obvious from the sound check that Daria and Tristan were on top form and it was going to be a good night.

Since it is almost certainly the case that Doria is a more well-known act nationally than Na-Mara, we were very happy to agree to her and Tristan finishing the evening and for us to perform first. 

A good PA system makes you want to sing and play, and Ian's expertise in setting it up so beautifully did just that with the result that our hour long set went down very well indeed. The feedback in the break and at the end of the evening was very positive and we probably sold more CDs that evening than we have ever managed at a single gig before.

Uxbridge Folk Club invites only one floor act to perform between the two main acts on a double header evening, and this role was performed this evening by a duo, Pippa Collings and Paul Vile, from the renowned Twickenham Folk Club. Together they performed a set of Pippa’s self-penned songs which all went down very well.

Then, after a few minutes to recharge glasses etc and get the PA re-set, it was Daria and Tristan's turn. Daria is a beautiful singer and Tristan a wonderful guitarist. Together, they make a great sound. Their set was a nicely balanced mix of Daria’s own songs, often about the horrendous experiences her grandmother and other relatives went through at the hands of the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union. These captivating songs were punctuated with traditional songs from both Ingushetia and Ireland; all delivered with Daria’s characteristic passion and expression.

MC, Dave Artus, summed up the evening very well when he talked about feeling emotionally drained by the overall collection of songs over the course of the programme with references covering Russia to Bangladesh, Galicia to Ireland. 

Finally, Daria led tributes to Archie McCauley who had died two weeks previously after a long battle with cancer. Archie was a key figure in the revival of the Uxbridge folk club some 15 years previously and, as with us, he had been hugely supportive of Daria’s music when she was starting out, giving her and us great advice. Daria gave a beautiful and emotional tribute to Archie which was welcomed by all. 

Many thanks to current club organiser, Terry Dean, MC for the evening, Dave Artus, and to all at Uxbridge Folk Club for their kind words and wonderful welcome. We wish them and Uxbridge Folk Club every best wish for the future. Similarly, we also wish Daria and Tristan all the very best with their own and related projects. They are both great talents and deserved to succeed

After a busy family weekend, Rob, Dave and I assembled on what was a beautiful summer’s evening to make the brief journey from St Albans over to Reading to play our last ever gig at the wonderful Readifolk club.

Readifolk has been a massive supporter of Na-Mara’s music over the years. In the car going to the gig, Rob wondered when we had last played at Readifolk. The answer to that question was two years previously. However, in searching for the answer, we found a YouTube video of Na-Mara playing at the club in 2006 - one of our first ever gigs. That's how long Readifolk have supported our music.

Without any shenanigans journey-wise, we arrived in good time at the club where organisers, Colin and Una, had already laid the room out for the evening. It was lovely being able to quietly catch up with all their club news as club regulars began to arrive for the show.  The club meets in the Community Hall of Watlington House in Reading.  The House is set in beautiful gardens and parts of it date back to the 16^th century.

After setting up and tuning, the three of us disappeared outside briefly to ‘snaffle’ our pre-gig sandwiches and (crucial) bananas  - energy for the evening. 

Readifolk is endowed with a great number of talented club singers, and the evening was kicked off by our MC for the evening.  He was followed by self-penned songs by Readifolk Radio organiser, Ian, and then a regular club singer performed his song about troubled love between two Australian aborigines.  Great music making all round.

The club singer performances were similarly excellent before our second set of the evening.  We had some great blues playing, some excellent banjo playing on a song called The Hills of Mexico which I'd never heard before. We also had some Crowded House performed and then, my namesakes, Danny and Ali McNamara played a great version of Ewan MacColl's The Joys of Living (which I have subsequently researched the lyrics for. Gorgeous).

Our two sets were very well received and the Readifolk audience lived up to its reputation as a great singing club with a now goodly sized audience for a warm summer’s night giving vocal support for many of our songs.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and the fact that the car park gates at Watlington House close automatically at 11:00pm certainly focuses the mind on finishing promptly. Still we had enough time to finish where we had started with Readifolk all those years ago. The 2006 YouTube video we had found on the way to the gig was of Rob and I performing the Irish traditional song, The Maid of Culmore and, so, that's what we played for our last ever song at Readifolk.

The goodbyes with Colin and Una and with our other friends from the club were really quite emotional and it was humbling to be informed by one of the club singers that Na-Mara was his wife's favourite duo. What a great accolade. Thank you.

Thanks to Colin, Una and everyone at Readifolk for their unstinting support and belief in Na-Mara’s music over so many years. We wish the club all the very best for the future. It is a great club and has ever been a huge favourite of ours.

Croydon Folk Club has a longstanding reputation for excellence and it was an honour to be invited back to perform at the club once more.

With the capricious nature of that southern section of the M25 at most times of the day, we set off reasonably early to try and avoid the likely rush-hour mayhem.  WE didn’t quite succeed.  WE got most of the way there trouble-free but then, presumably on some knowledge that we didn’t have at the time both car and phone SATNAVs directed us along the A3 and into Croydon via Wimbledon, Mitcham and the like.  So, I was able to indulge my (least) favourite pastime for an hour, namely, driving through London in rush-hour.

Past experience told us of where one might find a decent parking spot near the club (Heathfield Road, south of Coombe Road if you happen to be travelling that way) and we were still in decent time to park up and see club organisers, Brian and Jenny, who already had the room set up for the evening in a building in the garden of Ruskin House. It was great to hear that the club is in good health currently.

Rob and I set ourselves up as audience members and club performers began to arrive.  Some friends had travelled across London to come and see us perform and, greatly appreciated, two new friends from the Dulwich Folk Club also came along to see us again.

As the room filled, we had time to chat with MC for the evening, Phil. He was wonderfully welcoming and very well disposed to our music. Indeed, he told us that he hoped our song The Siren's Call was on the set list (which it was) because he and his wife had been performing it themselves since hearing a couple of years earlier. It is such an honour to know that someone likes your music enough to play their own versions.

Then, in an unplanned coincidence, when Phil and his wife mounted the podium to get the evening started, they sang their version of ‘When I was a Fair Maid which was also on our set list for the evening.  With Phil's melody virtually the same as our own, some re-jigging of our set list was needed.

Croydon Folk Club has some great singers amongst its membership and club organiser, Jenny, then took the stage to perform a couple of numbers. She was followed by a third club singer who performed a very interesting update of folk classic My Son John.

Baulking at what seemed to us a perilously high podium, Rob and I then went on and, from the floor, soon had an enthusiastic audience getting involved in singing choruses. The feedback at half time was excellent and CD sales were brisk. Indeed, one young man, was so taken with our music that (with us having no card reader) he took himself off into the Croydon night to find himself a cash point so that he could return and buy a clutch of CDs from us. Another great honour bestowed.

Following the break, we enjoyed another round of floor spots. Very kindly, club organiser of Dulwich Folk Club, Peter, had come along for the evening and, in our honour sand a song about the Spanish Civil War, which I confess I had not heard before. It was unaccompanied version of Ron Kavana's, Maria de La Rosa. Another lovely touch in an evening full of them.

We again gave our new material another run out in the second half set and it seemed to be received along with the rest of the set and our encore, Maid of Culmore.

Many thanks to Brian and Jenny for the invitation to perform once more at the Croydon Folk Club, and to Phil and his wife for the warmth of their welcome, their kind words and their support throughout the evening. Finally, many thanks to all of those in the audience who joined in so enthusiastically with the choruses and were kind enough to come and ask questions and to tell us how much they’d enjoyed the concert.

St Neots Folk Club have been a huge support to Na-Mara right from our earliest days and it was an honour to be invited to again perform a concert, this time on the last night of the 2024 St Neots Folk Festival as support to main act , Oxford-based band, Moonrakers.

One might expect a one-hour trip up the A1M on a Sunday afternoon to be trouble-free but those gremlins at the Ministry of Transport are clearly monitoring Na-Mara’s Facebook page and when they see us with a gig, they will act quickly to make life difficult, and this was no exception.  With the A1M closed, we were forced to travel north, cross-country up through Kimpton and Hitchin to get on a trouble-free stretch of the motorway.  After that it was plain sailing.

Despite the disruption, we still managed to arrive at the appointed time for a sound check.  As we were to discover throughout the evening, Moonrakers are the most generous bunch, and they had agreed to let us use their p.a. system.  We said hello to Jacqui, Becci, Sarah and Jon of Moonrakers and the members of the St Neots Folk Club committee who were already busy   setting up the room for the evening concert.  Sadly, long time club organiser, Roger, was unable to be with us all on the evening.

Eating cake provided in great profusion by the festival organisers, Rob, Dave B and I sat and listened to Moonrakers go through their sound check.  It was clearly going to be a good night.  Then, we did our sound check with Jon and Sarah helping us enormously to get a good balance of sound.

A minor confusion on the ticketing over the start time for the evening meant that the evening’s performances had to be delayed slightly.  However, St Neots Folk Club is very well endowed with its own club performers, and they were able to keep entertained the audience that had arrived by this point.

We were then on for our 45-minute set which all went very well.  The audience was a decent size and, as has been our experience with performing at Folk Club nights in St Neots, they are all great chorus singers.

Then it was a reasonably quick turnaround, and Moonrakers took to the stage.  Fine playing and excellent vocal harmonies on a mix of self-compositions and traditional folk classics had us and the audience greatly entertained.  With Jon on a variety of instruments, Becci on Celtic harp and piano, Jacqui on ‘lead’ cello and accordion, and Sarah with beautiful vocals and percussion responsibilities, the complete sound was a delight to listen to – especially with more cake and, now off duty and not driving home, a pint of beer.  Cake and ale indeed.

Sadly, such evenings always have to come to a close and, courtesy of club organiser Di, armed with yet further supplies of cake for tomorrow’s afternoon cup of tea, we said our goodbyes to club organisers and Moonrakers and turned for home.  The gremlins at the Ministry of Transport must have gone to bed by then as the drive home was, for once, trouble free.

Many thanks to the committee of the St Neots Folk Club for the invitation to perform again at the St Neots Folk Festival and thanks to Moonrakers for their generosity and friendship throughout the evening.  We wish both the St Neots Folk Club and Moonrakers every best wish for the future.