Filey Folk Festival - thank you all

Live at The Imperial, Filey

The Filey Folk Festival was an eclectic mix of styles, not only in music but in dress, each as colourful and loud as the other. From what you might describe as normal to the other end of wacky, it was a blend that came together and just worked. It worked, I believe, because where people come together to perform their music in a festival space, there is an acceptance and shared understanding of all our differences, a unifying presence of creativity.

You only need to spend a couple of hours wandering from venue to venue to realise this. If you’re there for the whole weekend like we were, then you get to feel it in full. The buildings themselves breathe it and come alive. They pulse. Sometimes with gentle noise, other times shaking at the foundations, other times with light and musical notes bursting through panes of glass.

All around outside is the hum of people, musicians with instruments strapped to their backs weaving in and out of locals and short stay seaside visitors. There are shops filled with a raft of anything you could care to name – you feel anything you want is there somewhere. And there’re chips too. A chippy on every corner, it feels like. I’m not complaining.

For my part, I played The Imperial in the early afternoon of Saturday. You wouldn’t class my music as folk, not in the traditional sense, rather more under a catch all genre of Americana. And whilst that traditional folk music is often heavy on literal storytelling, my songs are a mix of stories with a good few built on feeling, where the listener can insert their own life experiences between the lines of the lyrics. They went down well, those songs of feelings. And at the end of my declared final song, when people clapped and shouted “more, more”… Well, I can’t say I wasn’t taken aback a little. It’s a good job I had a couple more songs on my list.

On my way back to sit down, one lady gently grabbed my arm and said, “I’d have paid to watch that.” How nice.

In the early evening I was back on stage, this time at the Masonic Hall on the Fox’s Den Radio stage. A less traditional venue among the pubs, but one of beautiful acoustics. I played the same set as earlier in the day, apart from another opportunity to play an extra song. This time I went to the small vault of covers I like and played Bob Dylan’s, Girl From the North Country.

Opening minute of "Dark Side of the Moon"

What you do get with audiences big and small at events like Filey Folk Festival, is that people are there because they really enjoy the music. It’s what they’re there for. To watch and listen. It’s not always the case, when you’re playing a local pub on a Friday night for instance. So again, when you’ve packed up and people then go out of their way to speak to you, to say how they enjoyed the songs, and ‘x’ song in particular, you can trust they mean it.

A successful event for me then. And from the outside looking in, it was a perfectly executed event across a host of indoor and outdoor venues, by the organisers. It’s no mean feat to run something that big, get people involved, attract the musicians and the music fans. A proper full-on weekend of musical entertainment, laughs, conversations, meeting people, being a part of something and playing a small part in its success.  

So, a huge, huge thanks must go to the hosts of at all the venues, but particularly for me Adie Sanders at The Imperial and Bill Horncastle. Biggest thanks of all though to Chris Pemberton and Sian-Elizabeth Powell (otherwise known as Silk & Custard) for organising an amazing weekend.