The Great British Folk Festival - Skegness 2012 - DAY 3

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BRC
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Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:45 am
Location: Kent, United Kingdom

The Great British Folk Festival - Skegness 2012 - DAY 3

Postby BRC » Wed Dec 12, 2012 3:18 pm

DAY 3 – 2 DECEMBER 2012

After last nights experience we decided that this evening we would choose just one of the theatre venues, get our seats and not move for the evening. So we faced a difficult choice – ‘String Driven Thing’ or ‘Gordon Giltrap’ – decisions, decisions. No problem as we thought we should give the young up-and-coming Gordon Giltrap a chance to entertain us.

GORDON GILTRAP

We queued, got our seats, chatted a lot with people who were new to Gordon’s music (or at least thought they were) and quite a number who had never heard of ‘Gordon Giltrap’ before. How is that possible? I suppose on the basis that we had not heard of all the acts who were appearing at the festival it was, just about possible.

Noticeable from this performance was that there were no ‘groupies’ crowding the stage area and all could see and hear Gordon play. The introduction began in the usual Giltrap safe effacing way with even the MC introducing him as ‘a legend in his own lunchtime’ – a many times used phrase by others but it added to the warmth of the evening (inside the theatre, anyway).

Gordon launched into his repertoire that I am very familiar with, including ‘Lucifer’s Cage’, ‘Isabelle’s Wedding’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and many others, but surprised me with the inclusion of ‘Rachel’s Reflections’. A piece I have never heard him perform live before but was really delighted with as I consider it to be a very beautiful piece of music. Whoever Rachel is has been honoured greatly with this composition. The atmosphere in the theatre was definitely very warm towards Gordon and the audience amazed at his prowess and versatility on guitar. Was there really only Gordon playing just one guitar at a time? Yes, there was – well until he played ‘The Dodo’s Dream’. Those who did not know Gordon’s music were now in awe as Gordon not only played guitar but accompanied himself in various other guitar parts – courtesy of the Boss Loop Station (still the RC-20XL?) and other effects box(es). Still a masterful and commanding performance – a piece I love hearing live as there are always new bits and variations to discover each time.

Sadly Gordon’s set had to come to an end – ‘The Gathering’ were due on at 21:15 – and he obliged the audiences call for an encore with ‘Heartsong’ – familiar to so many, though they may never have known its title or heard it played acoustically before.

An excellent performance all round, as I have come to expect, and without doubt one that has won many more new fans. I spoke to quite a few people afterwards, as did my wife and friends and they confirm that Gordon ‘wowed them’.

Gordon let people know he would be 65 years old next April (2013) but any thoughts of retirement will have to wait as this performance has left many more people eager to see him in concert.

THE GATHERING

This band/group was centred on Ray Jackson, the mandolin and harmonica player formerly of ‘Lindisfarne’ – the group that is, not the island.

Obviously there were going to be some numbers from the ‘Lindisfarne’ catalogue but also quite a few from other sources. Jerry Donahue, one time of Fairport Convention, played an instrumental number (title forgotten by me). This was very brave as Gordon Giltrap had come to sit in the audience at the front, and Jerry couldn’t possibly compare to Gordon’s performance. Nonetheless it was a competent delivery.

‘The Gathering’ rounded off their performance with ‘Meet Me On The Corner’ and produced a very good and well appreciated set.

We only saw and heard a little bit of ‘King Arthur’s Dream’ an decided it was time to go off and have some of our own – dreams, that is – with the late evenings/early mornings catching up with us.


Overall View:

This was an excellent value for money long weekend with comfortable accommodation, more than adequate breakfast and evening meal (pay a little more and have a better choice and service) and a feast of entertainment that individually would cost more to see that the cost of the entire weekend.

It is great to see such wonderful and accomplished performers showing off their craft to a mainly appreciate and well behaved audience. The only ‘downer’ was the strange ‘groupie’ phenomenon that surrounded June Tabor & Oysterband to the detriment of the other members of the audience. Still can’t understand that, but life moves on – perhaps better security would help. There was a distinct lack of security/control on the Saturday evening.

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