TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

According to the Adastra music website Whippersnapper tour June 5 - June 21 2009!!

Someone will have to book them

http://www.adastra-music.co.uk/html/101_artistInfo.php?id=108

In easy distance I hope...  ;D ;)

please come to wales !

Are they playing as a trio or quartet?

I've just emailed my pal Nick in the New Forest. Hall was filled for Chris & Julie, should do it the the Ws.

Should be a quartet...  it was this year.

Somewhere Close?

Please?

:(

Message duly sent to Ely FC.

Good lad [;-)

First night review then anyone...Pete....Amethyst....?

Heehee.. give me chance.. only just woken up!!

In a word though..

BRILLIANT.. (I won't use the word Pete used!!)

Can't wait...off to see them on Sunday night in Liverpool :D

johnnysaint

We shall be at at Bonor Regis on Monday.
Anyone else?

Hmmm. Liverpool - Bognor!  Nice one Mr Agent!!

Chris Leslie will be OK as he survived Leek-Stirling-Bromsgrove just a couple of weeks ago. Hope everyone else is already fitted with the van seat-shaped bums...

Sorry about my f'ing language at the end of the night, but I was well excited ! (No real excuse)
I'll certainly post a review and a couple of photos but probably not today !
It was a night to relish !

You're forgiven PG..  what a shock!

I posted in t'other thread that I thought you hadn't woken up yet...

Can these two threads be merged please mods?

some pix............ sorry about the quality - just a flavour of the night


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more

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OOhh that shirt!

I haven't got round to resizing my pix yet...  too much festivalling yesterday (Southwell)

Looks amazing!  I am highly envious... :)

Here are some photos from Coal Aston before the show and whilst setting up - I'll do them one at a time

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Watching Swarb and Chris play together was amazing ;D

At times they seemed to be having some much fun that they were grinning at each other like schoolboys planning mischief  ::)

Setting up

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The show begins

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Some close ups

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Here we see the teacher in full lecture mode !

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A few from the side of the stage aand a close up of the fiddle section

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Sorry, same picture twice there ................. so here's the right one and my final attempt which gives an idea of the atmosphere that night !

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IT was our great privilege to be able welcome Whippersnapper back to Coal Aston Village Hall after so many years, Chris, Kev and Mart played our old hall as the trio way back in - we thought after some discussion - 1992. But for me the excitement was in being able to introduce the full band again with the memories of 1985 when we first met them at The Cartwheel Folk Club, The Norfolk Arms, Rivelin. On that occasion we had received a phone call from Swarb asking us to put them on as part of a Folk Club Tour, the fee I seem to think was maybe £200 which back then was serious dosh.
I shall never forget the atmosphere of that night, they played acoustically, the performance was stunning - their album Promises was brand new, my signed copy is still treasured and it remains a favourite play on many, many occasions.
WPS subsequently visited our club 4 or 5 times and whenever we meet Chris and Kev there's always talkawhile of the fun evenings back then.

So to Friday 5th June at Coal Aston Village Hall.

I'm not going to attempt a set list review, couldn't possibly remember it all but of course many of the songs and tunes from Promises, Tsubo, Fortunes were featured through the course of their 2 sets. The first few numbers in set 1 were perhaps a wee bit shaky as the guys settled in, this was of course the first gig on their short tour and I understand rehearsal opportunity had been brief to put it mildly, but as the evening progressed we realised that we were witnessing something very special indeed. By set 2 they were on fire and the standard of performance was simply superb
Swarb treated us with his vocals on The Hard Times of Old England and later the classic Farewell My Lovely Nancy. His introductions and asides were terrifically well put and very, very funny, Seven Keys was briliiantly explained and stunningly performed as the end of set 1.
He is in incredibly good shape, his humour is as sharp as ever, I really enjoyed meeting him up close for really the first time in over 25 years.

The atmosphere in the packed hall was electric as they stunned us with one masterpiece after another, 4 masters of their craft playing together for the first time in over a year .. fantastic. Martin's Downtown Rodeo was fun with their classic "it faded on the record" ending, I loved John Gaudie and I Wandered By A Brookside - added to by Chris' suggestion that the atmosphere of Oxfordshire could be enhanced by purchasing their brand new Whipersnapper Live CD.  
Kevin's Pride of Kildare, The Maid From Coolmore were sublime but for me, and I suspect many others of us, the last song of the night One Way Donkey Ride was where the emotion really kicked in - for me it's a blend of sadness, reminiscense, and ..... well I can't really describe the intensity of the feeling.
I've mentioned the songs but of course the instrumentals were just fantastic, Swarb and Chris together on the fiddle cannot, in my opinion, be bettered and with Mart and Kev providing the drive Whippersnapper are still the top band in this genre (bar none !) OK it's only an opinion.

A terrific night on which were pleased to be welcoming many newcomers to our events, hopefully they went away with good thoughts of what we do at Coal Aston and will come back for more !

Absolutely superb revue Pete, and yes the gig was ****ing brilliant, no apologies necessary! I echo your comments about "One Way Donkey Ride", that song is blooming marvellous.

Great to meet some of your family, I do hope I was marginally coherent. I see our lot are immortalised in one of the shots - thanks for getting my bald spot in, must remember to use makeup next time.  

great review Pete,  I'm really looking forward to this evenings gig in Bognor Regis

Ace. Though I have to say (if you're reading) the Adastra website is really annoying ... maybe it just wasn't working for me. If anyone from that illustrious organisation is reading: my main problem was that if you start off with the question, "What gigs are there in the North-East in the next few months?"* you have to look at all the individual band profiles to find out. Maybe a calendar function or newsletter would be useful.

Cheers

Smiths  

Edthefolkie.. I didn't know you were there... did you see us??

Just saw you guys when you were going to your seats I think. Sorry about not saying how do - wasn't rudeness, it just got a bit hectic afterwards, don't know how we missed you.  :(

Paul and I nipped to the pub at half time (it's his local). Dave and Sheila were elsewhere for once.

Haha.. I don't know how we missed you!

Not far to get to that pub is it!!

 ;D

Interesting twist at the Liverpool gig last night; the crowd was introduced to the band - there were only 23 of us!

Great set though

That's shocking!

Wasn't Liverpool the European city of culture in recent times ? Nuff said !

Hopefully the good burghers of Bognor Regis will turn out in their hundreds this evening. There will be four of us travelling over from Southampton to help swell the numbers.

It is alledged that King George V final utterance was, Burgher Bognor, or words to that effect  ;D

23!!  Oh dear.. bet the agent isn't happy!

Was that due to poor advertising I wonder??

Mind you we once went to a Whippersnapper gig in Mansfield.. (the cultural arse end of Notts) and there were only 12 of us.. and our party made up a third!!  That WAS very poor advertising.

The Coal Aston gig on the other hand was well packed out  ;D

I wouldn't count on it, there's usually very few people turning up for folky things in Bognor, shame :-\
Hopefully I'm wrong though.

Will we see you there Adam ?

Great gig but minimal local advertising doesn't help with crowd numbers. :(
johnnysaint

Yep, Poor Will is going to be there too.

Axel just asked a very good question about what sort of advertising would help at a gig.

I think this is worth a topic of its own so I've moved the question to a new place:

http://www.talkawhile.co.uk/yabbse/index.php?topic=31786.0

Cheers

Nick

A very enjoyable gig this evening in Bognor Regis, what a treat to see the chaps performing together again and judging by their on stage banter, they would appear to be having a pretty good time too.
It was a real pleasure to meet and to have a chat with Bognor Talkawhilers Bill (poor Will) Clare & Adam during the interval.
A fairly reasonable turn out, I guess 140 or there abouts.

Excellent night in Bognor (that's not often been said!!) and I was impressed by the turn out. Wonderful to hear Swarb singing again, although when I mentioned this to the man himself during the interval, he quipped "If you can call that singing!".
Good to meet Martin too!
 

Thank God a decent number of punters turned up in Bognor. I'm still shocked about the 23 in Liverpool! That venue really ought to sort their publicity out. I mean, you can't say that Pete's audience in Coal Aston are all hardcore folkies but every time I go there it's packed out. Must be the nude wrestling that gets 'em in.

Incidentally my wife thinks that quite a few people at Coal Aston didn't realise what a miracle it was that Swarb was there at all, let alone that he was singing. And I'm sure Swarbie ain't going to enlighten them.....

I've popped some video clips from the Coal Aston gig on Youtube.

The Pride Of Kildare      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu4AVHAq2M8
Seven Keys                 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXbpYCyQk3Q
One Way Donkey Ride   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=182Kkl86WcM&feature=related

We got permission from the guys to film the gig, hope you like the results.
The sound quality is pretty good through the inboard camera microphone but the only, and by only I mean really unfortunate, snag is that due to the camera position Chris' face remains hidden behind the speaker through all the film. But you can see what he's up to and hear the results very clearly.

Superb stuff...thankyou  :)

Wonderful Pete.. thank you!!

looked at these yesterday and thought they were brill!

These are great Pete, thanks very much.

I love the Beezer and Royal Enfield clips too  -what a Renaissance man you are.

I've put some more Whipprsnapper stuff from Coal Aston up on Youtube this weekend,
The Maid From Coolmore is here -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE-u9yRts9w
the rest of them should show on the Youtube side menu including Fare Thee Well My Lovely Nancy, Downtown Rodeo, No More, O'Carolan medley, The Road to Tulloch ...........
All of them suffer the unfortunate problem of Chris' face hidden behind the speaker -

Thanks Pete.. brilliant.. well apart from the missing Chris  ;) 8)