Down on the Quayside on Bank Holiday Monday
Written by Kev Adams Friday, 10 September 2010
Bank holiday monday started off with perfect blue skies and we held our popular Acoustic/Unplugged session down on The Quayside against the backdrop of the River Severn. Nick Padget kept us entertained and amused with a brilliant acoustic ukulele and guitar set including more than one distorted thrash ukulele solo too. Nick also played with a full band "Shenanigans" in the Castle Grounds the following Saturday. Flat Stanley were up next and had people flocking down on to the Quayside with a fantastic dance style that's hard to pigeon hole and all the better for that too. Following on from Flat Stanley we had something completely new for the Quayside as returning festival favourite Tony Russell performed a brilliant solo Flamenco guitar set.
Well known folk singer Claire Hamill played us a great selection of material from her many albums recorded since the early 70's, following performances at a couple of local pubs and at "Chelfest" in Chelmarsh.
Next up Emma and the Professor delivered a great set of contemporary folk roots music expertly driven along by Mark "the Professors" bhodran and percussion playing and Emma's high energy guitar and vocals, fantastic stuff.
Popular local singer/songwriter Jake Flowers played next, superbly backed by brothers Ed and Will Gauden on drums and bass. They literally stopped people in their tracks and by now we had the audience watching from the bridge, all along the Quayside and even from the Castle Walk. Last on we had another great performance from local song writer and folk musician Jonathan Day with a three piece band also including guitar and cello. Jonathan last played down on the Quayside two years ago and never disappoints. This year he was performing material from his excellent recently released album "Carved in bone".Any landlords reading this please give these bands and performers a call, we want to see them in the town again soon.
