Writing this whilst watching sheets of rain falling from dark grey skies, it’s hard to imagine the four days of glorious sunny weather experienced at this year’s Wickham Festival. But, leafing through my notes from the weekend, each page triggers recall of a succession of brilliant performances, Skipinnish, Martyn Joseph, Vishtèn, Gerry Colvin, and so many more, and then the weather memories naturally follow. After having so narrowly escaped a weather disaster last year, Peter Chegwyn and his dedicated team deserved nothing less than this year’s perfect conditions and music to match.
As with many festivals, Wickham has grown to cover a range of music far wider than folk, no matter how generous you are with your definition. Programming this year, though, was made somewhat easier with the Main Stage 2 big top increased in size and equipped with sound and lighting rigs comparable with those on Main Stage 1. As in previous years there were two further stages, The Quay West Cave, curated by a local recording studio and an acoustic stage.
Bands, with or without a vocalist, can set themselves a simpler task when it comes to entertaining large festival crowds, get them dancing and lasting memories are made. Certainly, there were plenty of bands that passed this measure of success over Wickham’s four days, but some of my most memorable moments this year came from the singer songwriters. The mosh pit in Main Stage 1 is generously sized and wasn’t sparsely occupied for the start of Martyn Joseph’s set. But as he progressed from song to song, some slow and lyrical, others, angry rallying calls against injustice in its many forms, more and more of the crowd were drawn into the big top or out of their chairs, the reception for each song becoming ever more enthusiastic. Never was the cliché “…had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand” more justified and when he gave in to the repeated shouts for Cardiff Bay the bond between audience and performer was sealed.
Martyn Joseph
While Martyn was outstanding on Friday afternoon, Saturday it was the turn of Findlay Napier to show off his songwriting prowess, again highlighting how readily well-crafted songs can capture the attention of an audience. The songs were largely taken from his last two solo albums, VIP and Glasgow. Chatting with Findlay after his set, it took a while for him to talk through his many current activities, ranging from The Glasgow Songwriting Workshop which was happening the following weekend, through writing for a planned album with Megan Henwood, to an intriguing project he’s called The Ledger. In the early 1950s, Norman Buchan published a series of articles in The Scotsman including lyrics and tunes to many traditional songs. Findlay’s grandfather, working at the time on hydroelectric schemes in the Highlands, cut out these articles and pasted them into a ledger. This is now the source for an album which Findlay is recording, joined by his wife, fiddle player Gillian Frame, and multi-instrumentalist Mike Vass, six tracks recorded so far.
Sunday and it was Reg Meuross who captivated the Main Stage 1 crowd. I’m used to seeing Reg in the more intimate settings of folk clubs and arts centres but had little doubt his beautifully crafted songs and easy-going presentation would be equally at home at Wickham. So it proved, but Reg had a trick up his sleeve that guaranteed he would have the audience with him from the very start, finishing his sound check with an old Elvis song that had the crowd singing along in full voice. A trick won’t safely navigate you through a 45 minute set, but Reg’s mix of songs, some delving into the grimy fabric of life in 21st Century Britain some, often love songs, with a more carefree country sound, can be relied upon to get him there and leave the audience shouting for more.
Boo Hewerdine, though frequently performing solo, came to Wickham with his band, electric guitar, bass and drums, himself on acoustic guitar. I’ve waxed lyrical before about solo festival sets from Boo and so, while many of the songs were familiar, hearing them with a band was fascinating. Songs that had already impressed for the strength of their lyrics grew in stature from the interplay of melody, lyrics and arrangement. It’s no wonder Boo is in such demand both as a songwriter and album producer.
Gerry Colvin’s songwriting credentials are long-established, it’s almost 30 years since he was making his living as a writer in Nashville and, since returning to the UK, his output of songs and other music has been prodigious. The Gerry Colvin Band currently consists of Jerome Davis on bass, accordionist Trish Power and Lyndon Webb on electric and acoustic guitars and mandolin with Gerry as principal vocalist backed up by Trish and Lyndon. Given the spell of superb weather that Wickham was experiencing, Gerry had the perfect set opener in One More Week, his song from back in the ColvinQuarmby days, pleading for summer, and a summer romance, to last for one more week. He’d normally put this towards the end of a set when the audience is nicely warmed up for singing the repetitions of “one more week” at the climax of the song. But it worked just as well at the front, plenty of volume coming back at him from the mosh pit, setting up enthusiastic audience participation for the rest of his set. It may be that the first thing you take away from a Gerry Colvin performance is his, perhaps, just a wee bit, over-enthusiastic stage persona but make sure you listen to those words, there are gems to be treasured in every song.
So far, the writers of these memorable songs have been male but equally seared into the memory was the set from Sound of the Sirens (main image). Songs from Abbe Martin and Hannah Wood have been attracting plenty of attention for five years or so now and at Wickham, they showed why. They’re not averse to songs that plough the familiar furrow of relationships but you get more from Abbe and Hannah, maybe songs that bring mental health out into the open, maybe exploring issues of trust. But whatever the subject matter, their songs are performed with power, both from their voices and instruments. As an extra treat, their Wickham set included a third member for a couple of songs, Phil Beer on fiddle.
Strong songs produce strong memories but a truly memorable festival also needs energetic, occasionally raucous, dance-inducing music and that’s where bands come to the fore. In the second part of this review, I’ll look at some of the bands that delivered all of that and more.
https://www.wickhamfestival.co.uk/