Thanks to everyone who came to Loudhailer Seaside Special at Filey Folk Festival. What an awesome weekend! Filey is immersed in live music during the annual festival – our event at the Masonic Hall was just one of nine stages with over a hundred performances over the weekend. All the venues were buzzing, and there was a superb vibe throughout the whole of Filey. 
Rich and I were delighted that Ian Kennington invited us to host the event at the Masonic Hall after our pilot last year. It’s a lovely community venue which really suits an acoustic, family friendly show. The challenge is that without the backing of a brewery we have to raise funds to pay the artists. We decided to do this by having a small door charge and creating something different. A huge thanks to everyone who played exclusively at the Masonic Hall – Sally Barker, Alyx Tamminen, Graham Brady, Jackson D, Jim Orwin, Catherine Scott, Gifford Rolfe, Joan Foye, Roy Kibbler, and Brian Williams, and to all those who rose to the challenge of doing something unique for our stage – Graham Graham Beck’s one off upright piano set including never before performed live songs, The Dark Secrets debut unplugged gig, Emily-Pepsi Thomson’s new songs premiere, Dez Allenby’s set of Forest songs, Katie Spencer and Rob Pierson’s debut gig together, and to Dodge Mckay for opening the show with a specially heartfelt set on Saturday, and to Work in Progress for a superb feelgood finale on Sunday.
Sunday night’s concert was to a full house – fabulous folk singer Sally Barker with support from Katie Spencer and Robert Peirson – and was a real treat. The Dark Guitar/Loudhailer collaboration on Saturday night was excellent with a host of brilliant sets from Wolf, Jody Mckenna, ER Thorpe, Ellie Gaynard & George Boomsma, Jay Fraser and Crooked Weather.
I always write a few words about Loudhailer Acoustic to accompany Rich’s photos – not as a critique, just to express how much Rich and I thoroughly enjoy the music and performances. However, it’s impossible to find enough superlatives to describe the 42 performers who played during the 22 hours of live performances at the Masonic Hall, so suffice to say a huge thanks to everyone who came to play and to the brilliant audience, some of whom stayed for the whole weekend. Thanks to Jim Orwin who took great photos throughout the weekend. There are too many great photos for one gallery, so we’ll publish separate posts with more photos, but in the meantime have a look at the selection of photos in the gallery below. Click on an image and scroll through. Photos by Rich and photos of us and Brian by Jim Orwin.
Special thanks to John Colling of the Masonic Hall, Peter and Patricia at the Methodist Church for loan of the stage, Dennis Caruana for the PA, Karl Oakes on the door on Sunday, and Ian Kennington who has worked tirelessly and been brilliant to work with.
Here’s to Filey Folk Festival, what a weekend – see you next year!
Rich and Lou Duffy-Howard – Visit our Home Page
Wish I could have been there!!