Well it seems like a while a go now and my apologies for the late blog entry, in fact since the Gentle-Folk's Ball there have been two more gigs! One supporting Joel Owen and another at the Donkey as part of 'Nowt Flash' on a Monday night. More blog entries will follow talking about those though!
The Gentle-Folk's Ball, Friday 18th March 2011! I travelled to Leicester from Derby on a very sunny Friday afternoon dressed in my Red Nose Day T-shirt, as it was Red Nose Day and armed with my guitar and gear for playing and a couple of mics and leads to help mic up Humble He.
The 40 minute train from Derby arrived in Leicester around about half past 5 and I made the 20 minute walk across the town from the train station to the High Street where the Crumblin' Cookie Bar and Cafe is situated. A nice fairly easy jouney nowadays after the academic year's gigging I'm quite used to sitting in doorway seats on the train with my guitar and a suitcase and then trecking from one side of a city to the other! (Why do they never build venues near train stations?) That aside I arrived nice and early, which is a good thing when you're hosting the night and I began the setting up for the evening. The stage in the Crumblin' cookie is a rather clever fold up stage and so we set about unfolding the stage and setting up the microphones ready for the night.
First to arrive were Humble He. A 4 piece band with beautiful harmonies accompanied by 2 guitars, a violin and a cello. By the time we had given those guys a good sound check, the rest of the artists playing where there and ready to go.
After the doors opened at 7.30pm the crowd arrived and piled in and the show kicked off with Lena Walker. Lena is a young singer songwriter with a beautiful clear tone and soft voice, she began with a good 30 minute set of spine tingling music. She was followed by Kristy Gallacher, a successful inger songwriter from Coventry. Her guitar skills are completely increadable, and are equally matched by her beautiful lyrics and great personality. Kristy's set went down brilliantly with the crowd and after a short break in between Jack Day took to the Stage. Jack had travelled all the way from London in order to play. He is involved with the Lantern Society, a similar night of acoustic and folk music based in North London. His set was a brilliant mix of country, folk and blues guitar played to accompany a brilliant voice with an underlying gravelly tone. After Jack, Humble He took to the stage and wowed the crowd with beautiful melodies and harmonies with a set list from 'a photo of an old set list' the band charmed their way through the set and eventually were followed by us. We took to the stage and played out usual set, the hopes where to get some new material into the set but with only one band practise before the gig there really wasn't the time.
All of the bands involved with the night intermingled and some great connections were made for everybody. After the audience left, the night ended with a jamming session going late into the early hours between members of Humble He, Myself, Jack Day, Lena Walker and a good friend Daryll Kirkland from the Kirkland Turn.
Overall the night was an unequivical success and a really great experience for all the artists. A third Gentle-Folks ball is even in the pipeline already and early planning has begun!!
More blogs in the very near future regarding Joel Owen and The Donkey.
Thanks for reading!!
Dan
Hours So Far...
Planning & Promoting: 0hrs
Travelling: 2hrs
Rehearsing: 2hrs
Time at Gigs: 8hrs
Blogging: 1hr
Total: 13hrs
Total so Far: 120hrs
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