Monday, February 03, 2025

UK Blues Festival 2025

Blackpool, England. Friday 31-January/Sunday 02-February-2025.

A return to Blackpool following the inaugural event last year. Booked shortly after it finished to take advantage of the early bird reduced ticket deal. Mary mentioned this to a group of her girl friends who expressed an interest so we were joined by Andrea and Christine. 

We used home exchange for our accommodation, a house that clearly doubles as a B&B during the summer months judging by the individual locks on each room and a dining room / lounge for residents.

The organisers changed the arrangements from last year. Previously the main stage was in the cavernous Empress Ballroom which, while impressive, was not so good acoustically. This year they used a couple of the conference rooms which worked better although there was more distance to walk between them. 

During the afternoon sessions they had three stages in operation: the Main stage, the Acoustic stage and the Introducing stage. In the evening it was just the Main stage (although on Friday they also had a couple of bands in the Conference Foyer level).

This room was the venue for the Acoustic stage. A lovely Victorian pub room. 

Previously I have dashed from stage to stage to see as many acts as possible. This year I kept my FOMO under control and spent more time static which allowed our friends to rush from stage to stage to see multiple acts whilst I guarded our seats.

We arrived on the Thursday night before the festival started and got settled into our accommodation. Rather than eat out we dined in on chicken and chorizo gumbo out of our freezer.

Friday 31st January.

Josie Field (Acoustic). A mezzo soprano with a lovely smooth, pure voice. She is more about the voice than the guitar playing.

Chantel McGregor (Acoustic). By contrast Chantel is more about the guitar than the voice. A regular act from Solid Entertainment’s stable but somehow she just doesn’t do it for me despite her awards and devoted following.

Dom Martin (Acoustic). A Lad from Belfast who we have seen twice before and been impressed with so we were pleased to see that he was on the lineup twice, once acoustic and once with his band. His set included a John Martin song to confuse one of our party who had misheard his name.

In the intermission we went out for supper at Twisted Indian. It describes itself as Indian Street Food but that’s just marketing BS it is a normal Indian restaurant. We ate there last year and were happy to return.

Thomas Heppell (Introducing). One of several power trios of the festival. Hard rocking blues.

True Strays (Main). Some complex drumming going on behind the guitarists.

Chantel McGregor Band (Main). Obviously louder and more uptempo than the acoustic set but still not enough to send us to the merch table.

Alice Armstrong (Conference Foyer). We all agreed this lady is good. She belts out the songs with gusto.

Aynsley Lister (Main). Friday’s headliner, a ZZ Top style set. Excellent rocking music.

Saturday 01.

Blue Nation (Main). Rocking humorists with much entertaining banter between the songs. We liked their so much that we bought two of their CDs.

Blue Nation (Main). They stood an opposite ends of the stage hence two photos.

Long Road Home (Main). Last year’s Introducing stage winners. Their prize - a slot on the main stage this year.

Kyla Brox (Introducing). Belting it out in style, a powerful bluesy voice.

Ken Pustelnik’s Groundhogs (Main). Featuring Ken the drummer from the original Groundhogs still playing at 78. Definitely solidly in the Rock category.

Albany Down (Introducing). Don’t remember much about this set.

Supper was at Turtle Bay, a Caribbean restaurant where I had jerk chicken with rice and beans. Fairly basic but then I wasn’t expecting haute cuisine.

The Milk Men (Main). We’ve seen them before and were impressed. A cracking show - kind of Dr Feelgood meets ZZ Top.

The Hitman Blues Band (Main). Definitely American.

Dom Martin Band (Main). Having enjoyed the acoustic set we now get the full band treatment. He is going from strength to strength  

Sunday 02.

Kris Riviere (Introducing). Warm Delta blues. Got my vote for the Introducing act of the day.

Son Jack Jnr. (Acoustic). Jangly slide guitar reminded me of Mississippi John Hurt.

Tom Killner (Main). A bit twangy - a hint of country in there.

Lightning Threads. On the Introducing stage  

Jack J Hutchinson (Acoustic). Classic singer/songwriter. Excellent.

Bag’O’Bones (Introducing). Full tilt boogie with some nice slide guitar work.

Snake Oil Band (Main). Old school blues complete with harp.

Sloetrain (Introducing). Another blues band but I wondered if they still have day jobs.

Supper was at Umami, a pan-global buffet restaurant - for a fixed price you could eat as much as you wanted. There was a huge range of choices - something for everyone.

Willie Barrett and John Otway (Main). A one hit wonder with “Really Free”. I was not expecting a hilariously funny, laugh out loud performance from this pair.

A comedy musical act complete with Bagpuss bagpipes.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown (Main). Apart from the one hit wonder of “Fire” I knew nothing of his music. Turns out the band put on a rocking set with a bonkers collection of caped outfits from the theatrical eponymous frontman. 

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

King King (Main). Excellent Rock band. The lead singer made me laugh, he said he’s going to keep on playing as long as he can. His ideal is to “cark it on stage like Tommy Cooper“. 

There was a man in front of me videoing the show with the flash on. 1) the light does nothing to illuminate the stage thanks to the inverse square law and 2) the light is a clear signal that you are videoing the performance which in some venues could get you chucked out. What a Muppet!

We enjoyed it so much we have already snapped up early bird tickets for 2026!

Sunday, January 26, 2025

Big Birthday Celebrations

Penrith, Cumbria. Saturday/Sunday 25/26-January-2025.

A celebration of big birthdays Part 2: Mary and SIL Sandra birthdays are almost exactly ten years apart, January and December respectively. Rather than buy each other presents they decided upon a joint experience which we duly did - a luxury New Year's break in Pitlochry see [Pitlochry]. 

Mary‘s original plan for her actual birthday was similar to the last big birthday i.e to run away in denial but this time to New Zealand, but we couldn’t get reward flights on the dates that suited so instead we celebrated at home. We were joined for the weekend by Mary‘s sister, Sandra, BIL George, our best man, Pete, and his wife Amanda.

Saturday 25th.

We often celebrate Mary's birthday with a Burns' supper but were unable to find anyone holding one in the area. Instead we went for a traditional supper at home with haggis, neeps and tatties and a side order of pie and beans for George who is not a fan of haggis.

Starter was home cured salmon. Pudding was Christmas pudding soufflé - and excellent way to use Mary's leftover homemade Christmas pudding.

There was wine and whisky but I didn't count the bottles!

Sunday 26th - Afternoon.

We had afternoon tea at Bassenthwaite Lake Station. We have been there many times for wine tastings, murder mystery evenings and a brunch but this was the first time for afternoon tea. The venue includes replica railway carriages from the Orient Express. Not the real train but ones made especially for the movie set from the 2017 film, nonetheless a very elegant setting for a celebration.

The spread was half savoury, half sweet: sandwiches, fish goujons, cocktail sausage in Yorkshire pudding and a mini-burger followed by trifle, muffin, scones, strawberry jam and clotted cream plus two very chocolatey desserts.

They were able to provide a lactose free version so Mary and Sandra did not miss out.

Fortunately they are used to providing doggy bags so what we couldn’t eat did us for snacks over the next couple of days.

Sunday 26th - Evening.

Not a party as such but drinks with friends in the local bar; you might call it a private concert. We booked the astonishingly talented guitarist Jon Bowie to play a couple of sets in the upstairs room at Fell Bar and invited our friends.

He played a mixture of folk and blues, cover versions and original compositions. I am pleased to note that our friends were most respectful to the artist and there was minimal talking while he was actually playing. That is in no small part due to the man's sheer talent which commanded attention.

At the break and at the end we chatted with out friends and had a most relaxed evening - a delightful low-key way to celebrate. We staggered off home "and so to bed".

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake at Sadler’s Wells

London, England. Wednesday 08/Sunday 12-January-2025.

A long weekend in London. This production has been on Mary’s to do list for a long time. As part of a holding pattern we went to see Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet the year before last which likewise was a very non-traditional interpretation. 

We organised ourselves a Home Exchange in Hackney so we could make a full weekend of it.

Wednesday 08: We took the train down to London. Given the bitterly cold forecast, we decided that an icy drive down was a bad plan and that we would let the train take the strain.

The cheapest train was the slowest option but gave Mary the perfect opportunity to do some essential planning for our forthcoming New Zealand trip. By the end of the journey she had booked three wine tastings and three excursions.

We hit London and headed straight back out to our friend Andrea in Witham for a catch-up, a meal and a stay over.

Thursday 09: Next morning it was back into London and on to our accommodation. This time, unusually, we did a direct, simultaneous Home Exchange. Our hosts were staying in our house in Penrith while we were in their apartment. We overlapped briefly with the outgoing host when we arrived. He handed over the keys and then headed off up north whilst we headed into town for the main event.

We were not in a hurry so took a double decker bus into town treating it as an architectural tour. We got my favourite spot at the front upstairs which gives you a brilliant view of the buildings from shiny modern, through Victorian to some Georgian as we got further in. 

We would normally have dined at The Gate, a brilliant vegetarian restaurant, but the Angel branch recently closed down so we went for a nearby Japanese (Sanjugo, Angel) instead for a delicious pre-theatre supper.

As I bought the program I was able to check on my phone and astound the young lady selling the programs that I first went to Sadlers Wells way back on 28th March 1977 to see the Dutch dance company Pilobolus. The following year I went to Sadlers Wells five times and four times the following year as well as many dance troupes at other venues. Living in London I took advantage of ready access to some great productions - a proper culture vulture.

It was my first time seeing this ballet although I knew the music. It was a fascinating and spectacular take on the story. Switching the swans to male dancers means the prince falls in love with a man bewitched while his mother want him to marry a princess. Lots of scope for alternative readings of the prince's sexual orientation and relationship with his mother!

Friday 10: The plan was that Mary would go shoe shopping while I went to meet up with my oldest friend Catherine Bott who I have known since the very first day in primary school when it opened in September 1957! Sadly she had to cry off due to the lurgy.

The alternative afternoon was a visit to the National Portrait Gallery to see an exhibition of prize winning photographs. That evening we were also able to meet up with two of my friends from the early 80’s coincidental with my early days in the bright lights, big city  era.

Saturday 11: Morning was of course parkrun at the nearby Hackney Marshes. 

It was a short walk from our accommodation and the marshes looked very atmospheric in the frosty morning light. Sunrise over the marshes.

The course runs, in part, along the side of the Lea River Navigation Wikipedia.

Mary got another volunteer credit as parkwalker in her fetching blue tabard with matching (of course) leggings!

That afternoon we met up with my best man and his wife at Bentley‘s Oyster Bar and Grill for a long overdue catch up and an extra extravagantly expensive meal but, what the heck, sometimes you just have to splurge because you’re worth it.

Sunday 12: The train was early-ish so we hastily flung all our stuff back into our bags when the alarm went and got the Overground with its new names and Lizzie Line back to Euston. Then it was another slow train back to Penrith, this time because it was a replacement bus service from Preston. However all went smoothly and we were back home by late afternoon to relax after a weekend well spent.

Sunday, January 05, 2025

Jon Bowie plus Open Mic at Penrith Players

Penrith, UK. Sunday 05-January-2025.

Our third open mic outing at this venue. We went because the post-interval act was the excellent Jon Bowie and, as at previous events, we have enjoyed the variety of the support acts.

This venue and these open mic events are very much supported by the locals. It makes me feel like a local. There were at least half a dozen of our friends and acquaintances in the audience including four fellow Eden runners. We were slightly surprised when two of them were called up on stage as the first act - we didn’t know they played and had put their names down.

I would say more about the acts and songs but I didn't take notes so writing this a couple of weeks later the details start to fade. I would say that anyone who can a) play an instrument and b) has the courage to play in public has my admiration. If I learn their names I'll update.

Mark and Paul - fellow Eden Runners who I normally see on a Thursday morning doing a social run round the Lowther Estate. Strange to see them in a wildly different context.

All the acts did three songs apiece before handing over to the next.

Reminding me a little of the early Joni Mitchell, gentle lyrical songs.

A mix of covers and original songs seem to be the order of the day for all the acts.

A double act with banter between the pair.

Then there was a break and an opportunity to refill our glasses. Then it was the turn of Jon Bowie who did a longer set as befits the main act.

We had a bit of a chat with our friends and then, the joys of living in the centre of town, a mere five minute walk home.