Costa Del Folk: Johnny Whalley’s Ibiza Diary (Part Two)

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Folk Radio UK reviewer Johhny Whalley recently headed to Ibiza for the Costa Del Folk festival where he kept a festival diary…

Read Part One here.

Saturday, April 27

 

First full day, by 10.30, two of the festival’s popular participation events are underway, the CDF choir organised by Celia Ketchell and the English Tunes Session with Cathy Taylor. These happen each morning, the choir readying themselves for an appearance opening the last afternoon concert. I take a slightly more relaxed start, music at the Infinity Pool Stage starts at 11.30 with the first of umpteen appearances from Greg Russell and Ciaran Algar. They’re quickly into the groove, both musically and with their banter. They’ve always had a good stage chemistry, but as their gentle and sometimes not so gentle teasing of each other has developed, it’s become a trademark part of their sets, leaving the audience rolling. Being first onto this stage, they are first to praise the view, but certainly not the last. Who can blame them? It really is breath-taking.

 

Next up, Seth Lakeman, and as with yesterday’s mainstage appearance, he has a guest. Today, it’s young guitarist Dan Gordon. He’s played with Seth before, but this is a spur of the moment addition. Dan is in Ibiza as one of the sound crew, so no time for rehearsal, just borrow a guitar and on you go. It worked well, so well that Dan’s going to join Seth for his Minack gig on May 9. Closing the morning concert, Efrén López and his trio make their final appearance. Their set takes us to 1345, for most, just enough time for a walk to the main stage, where the afternoon concert starts at 1400. But I’ve arranged a meet with Efrén. I hear about his long-standing relationship, initially as a pupil, now as a fellow tutor, with Irishman, Ross Daly, who set up the Labyrinth Music Workshop on Crete back in 1982. About his current projects that are taking him into the realms of Greek “fiddles” and Iranian percussion. About his appreciation of modern hurdy-gurdies, with their more stable tuning and in-built amplification. But he is flying back to Valencia this afternoon, and we’ve run out of time.

 

Even so, I miss the opening act on the main stage, Heg and the Wolf Chorus, but I’m in time for the one-man musical firestorm that is Tim Edey. Tim will play music anytime, anywhere, with just about anyone, so the CDF set up where artists and audience alike are together pretty much 24 hours a day is an ideal milieu for him. He’s been a lynchpin of the late-night bar sessions so far and his first stage appearance is only slightly more restrained. He’s a solo musician, right? But his switches from guitar to melodeon and back, sometimes within the same tune, leave me wondering if he’s hiding a twin backstage. For a set of Kerry polkas, he’s joined by main stage M.C. Mike Harding on mandolin. But, when solo again, a sequence that takes him from a JS Bach selection on the box, to a Django-esque Can’t Take That Away From Me on guitar that then segues into a set of reels, leaves everyone wide-eyed in wonder. Oh, yes, he sang a couple of songs as well.

The ladies of The Outside Track had been on their feet dancing during Tim’s set but now quickly catch their breath, grab their instruments and present the closing set of the afternoon. For their encore, they’re joined by Greg, Ciaran and Josie Duncan. I’ve been hearing that these three along with The Outside Track had been heavily involved in last night’s bar session and this tumultuous climax to the afternoon seems to be one result. Eight musicians on stage enjoying themselves and ensuring everyone else does too.

 

Once they’ve got themselves off stage, I’m meeting up with Greg, Ciaran, Josie and Pablo Lafuente. Later in the festival, they’ll be uniting with Ali Levack and Evan Carson as the rejuvenated Tweed Project. The Project existed for a while in 2015 when Greg and Ciaran joined forces with Mischa Macpherson and her trio but all too soon the demands of developing careers for the two separate bands seems to have taken priority and the Tweed Project slipped from view. As Ciaran tells it, this left him with an itch, (no smutty ripostes, please) he really wanted an opportunity to play Scottish music. Making contact with the 2017 Young Folk Award winners, Josie and Pablo, was his first step and soon Evan, Ciaran’s colleague in The Lost Boys, and Ali, who was in the original Tweed as part of Mischa’s trio and is now with Pablo in Project Smok, came on board. They tell me all their initial preparation was Internet-based, they only met in the run-up to the band’s first gig, at this year’s Celtic Connections. No pressure then. Their first CDF set isn’t until tomorrow evening, but all they’ve told me so far has seriously whetted my appetite. This chat means I’ve missed the cèilidh, again, so it’s dinner and on to the evening concert.

 

After a second main stage appearance from the Spookies, the rest of the evening belongs to Calan, like The Outside Track, a band that’s somehow managed to avoid me for over a decade. Although Wales has a reputation as a musical country, the Celtic, traditional side of its musical heritage is nothing like as widely recognised as that of most other Celtic nations. Calan have long been on a crusade to redress that and their set showcased a mixture of traditional and self-penned tunes, songs in English and Welsh and lively step dancing from accordionist, Bethan Rhiannon. I detect something of a trend developing for the late evening slot, Outside Track last night, Calan tonight and Tweed Project tomorrow. The first two have given us outstanding, lively entertainment, tomorrow promises more, but tonight’s not over yet.

 

The Club starts off with half of Heg and the Wolf Chorus, Julu Irvine on guitar and flute, Heg Brignall on keyboard, both sharing vocals and it’s their harmonising voices that first catch my attention. A song that one knows well, Richard Thompson’s Beeswing, sounds refreshed and the story of female highway(man?), Sovay, evokes only distant echoes of Martin Carthy. Alongside these, there’s a clutch of their own compositions, most with a story to tell, often with the feel of a fairy tale. A very satisfying late evening set.

 

Second up is singer, songwriter, guitarist Odette Michell. She’s just released a debut album, The Wildest Rose (reviewed here), produced by Stu Hanna and with contributions from Phil Beer among several others, a well-connected lady. And I soon see why; a strong voice that can be gentle when it needs to be and a guitar style that gives a perfect accompaniment. She’s managing just fine by herself, but with Phil around, may as well make use of him. At first, he’s putting in some short fills from the fiddle, those lead on to solo breaks. And for the next song, he switches to slide guitar and the two of them really start enjoying themselves, and so does everyone else.

 

The Festival Club has provided two hours of exceptional music so I reckon I’ll give the bar session a miss and head for bed. Mistake!

 

Sunday, April 28

There’s a buzz about the hotel Dining Room this morning, the nature of my mistake last night gradually becoming clearer. The bar session, it appears, turned into one of the all-time greats. Tim Edey and Ciaran seem to have been the ring leaders, the ladies from The Outside Track and Phil Beer also rumoured to have played a rôle. There’s talk of some characters being seen, still searching for their rooms, at gone 4 am. I’ll no doubt hear about more participants during the day but, having slept through it, I’m not sure I want to know all about how wonderful it was.

 

First on the Infinity Pool Stage this morning, Josie Duncan and Pablo Lafuente. They could certainly be candidates for last night’s session, but they look fresh and rested so perhaps not. I’d not seen them since Cropredy 2017 when they played as winners of that year’s Young Folk Award. Josie’s singing and Pablo’s guitar shone through then and immediately do so again, and it’s wonderful to see how their stage presence has blossomed. We’re treated to a wonderfully varied set, they open with one of her puirt à beul Gaelic songs, starts fast and keeps getting faster. In complete contrast, a bluegrass song, There Ain’t No Ash Will Burn, follows then, it’s their arrangement of The Night Visiting Song, a song I know from Planxty as Cold Blow And The Rainy Night. The combination of song choice and entertaining, linking chat keeps me focussed throughout the set, great stuff.

 

Odette’s second appearance follows, beautiful songs again and one of them really stands out, Great Old Northern Line. It may be about the London Tube, but she’s created a piece evoking the atmosphere of a classic American railroad song. With the last act of the morning concert, I finally get to see the full four-piece Heg and the Wolf Chorus. Heg and Julu are joined by Joe Kelly on double bass and Vince Martin on guitar, all four providing vocals; indeed they close their set with a four-part acapella piece, Sea Shanty for Bessie Harker. Other parts of their set reinforce the impression I had last night, Heg’s song writing has that fairy tale feel, and, like a fairy tale, it can switch from softly lyrical and comforting to downright scary.

Opening the main stage this afternoon is Banter: Simon Care, Tim Walker and Nina Zella. They’ve been the resident band for the early evening ceilidh sessions for the last few Costas and this time have a main stage slot as well. As Simon told me, they started two years ago as a ceilidh band with a few songs, now they’ve grown into a concert band that can play ceilidhs. They’ve certainly proved that today. Simon’s melodeon carries many of the tunes, but Nina’s keyboard swells out the sound brilliantly even when not taking the lead. And then there’s secret weapon Tim, a drummer who plays brass. Trumpet and drums he manages very well together, trombone’s not so easy, drumming tends to stop. There’s still plenty of danceable tunes in a Banter set but the songs, with all three able to take lead vocal, are just as important and Nina’s lyrics always worth a close listen.

The second half of the afternoon is given over to Cormac Byrne and Adam Summerhayes, who, you’ll no doubt have read on Folk Radio, have an album just released consisting entirely of improvised music, Stone Soup. Their set this afternoon includes some of this material, but it’s a debatable point, to what degree can it now be considered improvised? I interview them after their set where we tackle this issue; you can the full interview here.

 

After the chat with Cormac and Adam, I head down to the Nautilus Bar. The subject of tonight’s “A chance to meet” is Richard Shindell and as he’s the other interview I have arranged, I’d better make sure I listen carefully. The format is for Richard to be in conversation with Steve Knightley. It’s clear at the start, Richard was unsure what to expect. But Steve does a great job, guiding him to give an account of his earliest music-making as a teenager, through the early years of his career, getting to the point where he’s writing songs for Joan Baez and on tour as her support in the late 1990s. The hour’s up by then; Steve’s left me with plenty to talk about when I get to sit down with Richard tomorrow.

 

The evening concert begins with a main stage appearance for Flossie Malavialle. Flossie has become a fixture at CDFs and seems to be on first name terms with most of the audience. The love and affection she generates is palpable, even more so today as it’s her birthday. But, birthday or not, she has to work and she entertains us with one of her very best sets. The mix of French and English songs interwoven with chat in her inimitable accent leaves everyone smiling. She’s helped, as well, by Phil Beer joining her for much of the set, two of CDF’s most treasured performers.

 

Next up, the hotly anticipated Tweed Project. Ali Levack now joins four of them, Greg, Ciaran, Josie and Pablo having already appeared in their duo formats on Highland pipes and whistles and Evan Carson on bodhrán. Rather than duplicating guitars, Greg switches to bouzouki, ensuring a superb spread of instruments, and with him, Ciaran and Josie all adding vocals, the set up is packed with potential. Potential they proceed to deliver, in spades. The core of their repertoire is material the two duos had already developed, with bigger arrangements to make full use of the extra instrumentation. To this, they’re now adding material specific to the Project. The result is mightily impressive, and it’s obvious the six of them are keen to take it further. Their set gets a marvellous reception; they’re brought back for an encore and sneaking on stage with them is Tim Edey. I don’t have a note of what they played for the encore; all I can say is it was amazing. They’re at a number of festivals this summer, see them if you possibly can.

Kicking off the Club tonight are Cormac and Adam. The setting and timing are just right for some of their improvisations from Stone Soup and so we get another variation of Mad Jig with Cormac on his Brazilian berimbau. That’s slotted in with more conventional jigs and reels and before long Tim Edey, who’s due to play the second set, can’t resist joining in for a couple of tunes, one on box, one on guitar. By the time Tim takes over for his solo set we’re already running a bit late, so MC Simon Loake has a few words with our sound man who agrees, we’ll be able to push the finish time a bit beyond the scheduled 00:15. With Tim on stage, that could open a flood gate or two. It’s not long before Tim calls for Cormac and Adam to come back up and we’re heading for a hooley of epic proportions. Not content with three, Tim’s after his partner in crime from last night, runners have to be sent upstairs and eventually we have Ciaran, Greg and Josie join the party. Simon’s looking nervously at the sound man, but no one really wants to stop, so we don’t. I’ve been with Tim in late night sessions before and he has a trick or two up his sleeve. Sometime after 1 o’clock, any semblance of stopping and starting a tune goes out the window; the music is one long, glorious jam of fiddles, guitar, box and bodhrán. When the session finally winds down, Simon Loake awards it the title, “Best Ever CDF Session”, and any lingering disappointment I had at missing last night’s has long disappeared.

We will have the final part of Johnny’s diary soon. You can find out more about the next Costa Del Folk festival in Portugal in October here.