What a cracking session and a great crowd it was last night at Loudhailer Acoustic. I opened up with one of Gifford Rolfe’s songs. It’s one of my favourites of Gifford’s many superbly crafted songs. Called ‘She Didn’t Come Home’, it’s about the Yorkshire Ripper. I find it an extremely moving and unsettling song which captures something about the Northern town in which it’s set – so many thanks to Gifford for sharing it. Rich and I played ‘Where Can You Go’ – a new song inspired by our trip to Northumberland, with some slide guitar (been listening to the North Mississippi All Stars). We had a few requests for our piano poem ‘Refugee, Sunday Morning Sketch’, which is different than our usual guitar songs, and nice to play.
Straight from the off Roy Kibbler had everyone grinning with his terrific set of Summer of Love poems. Gifford Rolfe and Joan Foye’s songs were fabulous, it was especially good to see Joan playing guitar. Really good to welcome Darren Oakshott and some of the Nocturnal Flowers – Pete McLeod on Djembe and Bill-of-the-Fox’s-Den on tea chest bass – fox & all. Gorgeous songs and a stomping rhythm section made for a fine set.
To finish off the first half Geoff ‘Pink Panther’ Durham serenaded us Spanish style for the last time before he heads back to Gran Canaria. Second half opener Jeff Parson’s stunned us all with his startling Loud Shirt and fabulous slide guitar (just like the buses two came at once). Karl played a trio of cool and amazing songs and invited us all up to join him for his finale so we had a SurroundSound jam complete with Fox ‘n’ Drum rhythm section. Next up Pete McLeod played a storming set of favourite songs with a story to tell. To top off a fantastic evening, the delightful songs and stories of Phil Pipe, superbly delivered, were a real treat.
Ok, now for the cake round up – Joan’s fabulously rich Carrot Cake provided everyone with one of their Five-a Day (Jeff?), Bev’s Butterfly Buns were snapped up, Gifford plied us with Coffee Cake and Walnut Slice, I made a couple of plates of gooey Choc Chip Cookies and Roy arrived with a good stack of pork pies. Yum.
Rich took some photos. Click on an image to enlarge and scroll through…
Big thanks to the WMC team and to everyone who came to play or to listen, once again a fantastic audience makes Loudhailer Acoustic such a pleasure, we thoroughly enjoy the friendly atmosphere, great vibe and of course, keeping music live.
Roy’s poetry and delivery is really something – have a look at his Summer of Love set from the session, it’s a perfect antidote to the rain and wind outside today. Click on the photos to enlarge them…
See you next time, second Saturday of the month as usual, so October 12th. All welcome. Rich and I are putting on Sally Barker and Vicki Genfan on Saturday 16th November at the Willerby Methodist Hall. It will be a fantastic night, please do come and join us, check it out here Genfan and Barker.