Saturday 18 February

With so many established folk festivals being cancelled or scaled back over the last few years due to poor ticket sales and lack of funding, it seems a foolish thing to do to set up a new festival right at the start of the festival season. But that is what Jan Ayers of SJM Concerts has been brave enough to do. Just a year after resurrecting Bristol Folk Festival, Jan decided that the town of Frome in Somerset would be the ideal place to host a festival to help blow the winter blues away.

Spread over two days and four venues, the festival had a great line up varying from big name favourites such as Spiers & Boden and Steve Knightley through to up and coming young new act Luke Jackson and lots of local folk talent in between.

First up at a rather early time of 9.10am to entertain the crowds collecting tickets and getting breakfast at the main venue at the Cheese & Grain was Dyer:Cummings. Made up of two sets of siblings (as well as Ned the Donkey who goes to every gig to hob-nob with the folk elite) they treated listeners to some ceilidh-style tunes to set everyone up for the day.

Next on the bill were Winter Mountain. Introduced by the Festival’s patron and Frome resident Cara Dillon, Winter Mountain are Marty Smyth and Joe Francis, two young musicians from Cornwall and Ireland who chanced to meet on a train in America. With a wonderful blend of vocal harmonies and a sound reminiscent of Simon & Garfunkel it’s little wonder that Cara has recently signed them to her own label Charcoal Records.

Jackie Oates rounded off the morning concert with a full band show and received a very warm Frome welcome from the audience.

After a very swift break where all the chairs were removed from the hall, it was time for the Spiers and Boden ceilidh, with Bristol resident Phil Bassindale calling the dances. Considering how scarcely Spiers and Boden play ceilidhs I was surprised at how few people were dancing for the first half (although this was probably due to the large number of people crowding in to the Westway Cinema to watch Belshazzars Feast perform an extended show), but all this changed for the second half of the ceilidh which was much better attended. Half time entertainment was provided by the colourful Rag Morris, a great example of how there are more and more young people coming into the tradition.

After another swift seating change and the distraction of more morris, it was time for the evening concerts. An early evening concert with Cole Stacey and Chris Wood, was followed by the Saturday finale of Jamie Smith’s Mabon and Spiers and Boden, all of whom were on top form and gave the audience rousing performances.

Sunday 19 February

Sunday again started off early with a 9.15am ceilidh from Elfynn. Whether is was due to the early start or amount consumed the night before, the patrons of the Cheese & Grain’s café were less than enthusiastic ceilidh dancers, but like true professionals Elfynn quickly switched to a set that would normally be reserved for a gig. With a pounding bass line, their Celtic style certainly blew away any remaining cobwebs from the night before and before long people were up and dancing, albeit sedately!

Now thoroughly awake, and a dash through the rain to the Westway cinema was in order to catch Jim Moray, who’s set was a mixture of songs from his new album Skulk, old favourites, a sprinkling from his recent collaboration in the Cecil Sharp Project and a beautiful version of Anais Mitchell’s If It’s True What They Say from Hadestown. Even the cinema’s resident terrier dog stopped in to listen to Long Lankin - although maybe it was a bit too scary for him as he made a swift exit.

Back at the Cheese and Grain Tim Edey (recently awarded the BBC Radio 2 Musician of the Year Award) and Brendan Power were playing the first of their two performances of the weekend, having heroically agreed to play a further set later in the evening which had become free due to another artist’s illness.

Sunday also played host to two album launches - the first of which was Gren Bartley launching Songs To Scythe Back The Overgrown. With a style that bridges the gap between traditional English folk and American blues, Gren’s soft voice and guitar skills had the audience sat in mesmerised silence for most of the set.

The second album launch of the day was courtesy of the wonderfully talented Miranda Sykes and Rex Preston, launching their self-titled album with the help of guest Damian O’Kane. Opening with a cover of Kate Rusby’s Old Man Time it was clear from the first note that this duo are certainly one to watch for the future. As an extra special treat at the end of the album launch the duo treated audience members to a glass of champagne and biscuits made by Miranda’s own fair hand.

Unfortunately I had to leave before the final Sunday evening concert of Luke Jackson, Philip Henry & Hannah Martin and a finale from Steve Knightley, but from the storm of great reviews currently on Twitter and Facebook I can see that they went down equally as well with the audience as the rest of the wonderful acts who performed over the weekend.

Personal Highlights

There were three highlights over the weekend for me - the first being an amazing performance by Pilgrims Way who are rapidly becoming a firm favourite on the folk festival circuit with their re-working of traditional folk songs, amazingly talented musicianship and Lucy Wright’s stunning voice.

Second on my list has to be, surprisingly, the performance from the Frome Street Bandits. This group of local amateur musicians form a band of wandering minstrels who processed from the Westway Cinema down to the main hall in the Cheese & Grain to burst in on an unsuspecting audience still quaffing champagne from Miranda and Rex’s album launch, playing a loud, brash mixture of brass band favourites.

My final personal highlight of the weekend was an outstanding set from Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman. Having always felt that Kathryn and Sean’s brand of folk was more suited to smaller, more intimate shows I had misgivings about seeing them in a larger venue but I happily say that I could not have been more wrong. From the start they had the audience in the palm of their hand - due in most part to Kathryn’s extraordinarily beautiful voice but also in part I think to Sean’s humourous chat between songs. He delighted in telling the audience about a “gig from hell” the night before in a rough pub in Salford where they had to follow a support act whose finale consisted of a version of humpty dumpty and where the clientele requested they sing Solomon Browne!

I think that it is fair to say that the whole weekend was an outstanding success (as can be proved by the fact that early bird tickets for next year have just gone on sale) and credit needs to be given to the organisers who managed to draw such a great turnout to the festival from not only people who would consider themselves folk fans but from the local community too. There will definitely be a large number of local people who now have a completely different view of folk music and hopefully they’ll turn out next year to support this new festival.