Studio Tan.

 

To The Steamboat, whose long and storied history intertwines with my musical back pages to a not insignificant degree, as regular blogavistas will attest. On this occasion Helen and The Neighbourhood Dogs have been employed second on the bill at Folk at The Boat, a celebration of the monthly sing around sessions conducted at the pub and a chance for us to shake off the studio cobwebs and flex ourselves in the bright sunny air of an Ipswich waterfront afternoon. The venue is literally a stone’s throw from my front door but due to the vagaries of the port authority’s historic delving among the cuts, a twenty-minute walk along Ipswich’s glittering waterfront. Hence La Mulley and I are mightily relieved to find, upon our arrival, a hand pump dispensing delicious Brewer’s Gold – generally a harbinger of good times to come.

We are also relieved to welcome a pair of special guests for the day. We are short a banjoista, guitarist, harmonica wizard, singer and concertina player for the day, however these divers talents are all concentrated within one person, and so in the absence of the mercurial Tony Winn we have accommodated not only willing volunteer Indigo Turnbull (who has been sternly admonished that one does not simply ‘plonk along’ with HaTNDs and so has literally sat at the feet of our five stringed guru in order to cover the banjo parts on three songs) but also Fiddly Richard – all the way from Thorndon – who has agreed to reprise his parts on the three songs which close the set and whose presence at a folk festival seems wholly appropriate. In the mean time, we are a core of five, including Professor Steven Turnbull on keyboards, who we initially brought in to cover the fiddle-based vacuum in the live show, and whose stellar contribution to the recordings have both impressed and delighted everyone who has heard them. I suspect even himself.

There’s a nice sound onstage, an appreciative pub garden full of gently swaying folks, and the spoken introductions are mostly landing well. Witnesses for the band confirm afterwards that everyone was impressed with us, and even Steven - the onstage anti-Puck – seems to be enjoying himself. The Turnbull scion does a lovely job in covering for Tony in the same way that Jake Clemons covered for Clarence, (not least that he helped bring down the average age of the group by a factor of - as one member referred to it - “and the rest”) and Fiddly’s stellar soloing on fan favourite ‘Nelson’* fully justifies his literally having to have blown the dust off his stage rig before making his way to the the performance area. Apparently, it died when switched on at home earlier and he had had to dig out the manual in order to remind himself of how to program the effects loop, so he was a lot calmer than I would have been.

We check the time, close the set, pack down and gather another refreshing draught of Crouch Vale’s finest. Then back off the the ‘otel, two birds each.

 

 

*The introduction which concludes “This is a story about the boy who built the lighthouse and the girl he left behind” receives a gratifyingly folk-esque sigh of approval.

Thanks to Dave Markwell for the photo, and for having the faith to put our case to the committee.