It has been just the weekend for a festival – lovely sunny autumn days, and clear nights. What a perfect weekend for East Yorkshire’s Cornucopia Festival – this year in the beautiful grounds of Burton Constable Hall. We played three Rich & Lou’s Loudhailer sets during the weekend. It was brilliant that our youngest son Dexter joined us on violin – and we soaked up the music and atmosphere in between. We met up with loads of friends – many of whom were performing or exhibiting at the festival. It was cool to catch some fantastic music, theatre and art in the Cornucopia festival village. Many highlights for us started with the steampunk beats, pipes and hurdy gurdy of Verne Duels and Tim Wall’s amazing visuals on the Barn stage. Long time ago friend Rogerio Marauder of The Tuesday Club escaped the confines of the M25 armed with his recording of a Planet Wilson gig from The Flag at Wembley. Their high energy glamour cabaret rocked the festival in a crazy punky new-wave stylee for sure.
Away from the main stages Cornucopia brought together a stunning eclectic mix of local and international culture, from the hilarious drama of Right on Cue to the haunting world violin solos of Vivian Querido and the beautiful art of Debi Keable.
But the best thing that happened for us was that after his collaboration with Graham last week – Dex & Becks – Dexter was so inspired by all the live music going on that he pitched up and played some guitar songs in the busking area. Then, who should he bump into but his drumming buddy Harry Raw with his Dad, ace drummer Alan. We found an oil drum knocking around and hey presto, a band! They’re both ten, so a crowd soon gathered round. Dave, a cajon builder from a stall round the corner brought a lovely carved cajon to replace the oil drum and they were away. Harry & Dex decided to be called The Fog – so The Fog performed a couple of Talking Heads songs and a few originals. Dexter was even more inspired when he realised he had earned enough money to buy a new hat. He played another couple of sets later on in the day, one with a PA on the courtyard stage – the first time he had used a mic. And the hat filled up again. He’s got his eye on a new pair of gig trousers now.
Rich took photos of some of our favourite festival finds. Click on an image to enlarge and scroll through…
What a great festival, Cornucopia 2014 at Burton Constable. Thanks to Jon Holtby & the team and Mark Pollard for asking us to play, we had a fantastic time.
Rich & Lou Duffy-Howard – Click to visit our website