Jigging in the Rain- FolkEast Festival

FolkEast at Somerleyton Hall

On Friday I had the day off work to attend a local folk festival- it was running over the whole Bank Holiday weekend, but we had tickets for the Friday to specifically see Seth Lakeman 🙂

FolkEast is a new festival for 2012, and was held at Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk, just down the road from us. We had day tickets which cost £35, pretty good value for the number of bands performing. The site wasn't particularly large but they had a camping area for those people staying for the whole weekend, and a large field for parking too. Fortunately it hadn't rained so we didn't have any issues with mud!

In fact we were pretty lucky with the weather- it was gorgeous and sunny for most of the afternoon, and just clouded over and rained a bit in the evening, so we enjoyed chilling in the sunshine listening to music 🙂

There were two main stages (Arena Stage and Kayam Stage), plus a Soapbox stage and Club Uniquity providing 4 areas of music. We wandered between them throughout the afternoon, catching bits of different groups and moving on if we weren't really fans!

On the Arena Stage we saw...

Matthew P- A local guy from Suffolk who plays acoustic, folk pop. His music was ok...

The Toy Hearts - This Birmingham based band is fronted by two sisters, and they play Americana and Roots music. They flew to Nashville to record one album and have toured extensively, opening for Robert Plant and Imelda May- it's easy to see why! I thought they were really good.

Montpelier Street from When I Cut Loose (2008)

Monster Ceilidh Band - Cross-genre ceilidh music, mixing traditional folk with electronic, drum n bass, and trance- a very interesting set! It definitely got the crowd going, although most of the pieces were very same-y after a while. They were quite similar to the Peatbog Faeries, if you've come across them...

"JaCk$ Bakk" - new video

The Shee- An all-female band playing Folk, Scots, Gaelic and Bluegrass. An entertaining group playing more traditional pieces, with some cool clog dancing!

Arena Stage

And Seth Lakeman of course, more about him below...

On the Kayam Stage we saw...

Kayam Stage

Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs - This band was very funny to watch! The three-piece played "off the rails skiffle", with a tea-chest bass, guitar and washboard. They dressed as 1940's hobos in tattered suits and hats, and covered tunes from traditional 50's skiffle through to Motorhead and AC-DC covers- hilarious!

Baskery - These three sisters from Sweden mix country and bluegrass with a punk attitude. They were ok, but their songs all sounded quite similar. They were a big hit with the crowd though due to their physical appearance! (lol)

"Throw a Bone" from New Friends (2011)

We also caught a few people on the Soapbox Stage and in the Club Uniquity Tent but not sure who we managed to see as there was no clear schedule.

Soapbox Stage

As well as the music there was also heaps of on-site entertainment including Morris Dancers, storytelling for children, a circus skills area, a chance to try your hand at clay pot throwing (although this cost) and random people in funny costumes walking around the site too (see below!)

Circus skills

My favourite feature were the metalwork and fire sculptures. These really looked amazing when it got dark, and it was a pretty good place to go and sit when it got a little chilly and rainy too! The charcoal burners were spitting out lots of sparks (due to the cheap grade charcoal) but it actually looked really awesome. There was one massive sculpture that threw out huge flames every couple of minutes too.

Food

There were lots of food stalls with heaps of variety from crepes to pizza. We had falafel for lunch just after we arrived which was really tasty- loads of fresh salad and vegetables!

Later on we also had coffees and shared a chocolate brownie and toffee muffin, yum!

In the evening we had hog roast rolls but these were a little disappointingly small for the price, so we shared a banana crepe afterwards to make up for it! (hehe)

Cider

Mark also had some cider from the bar tent- they didn't have a lot of variety, so I just drank water from the bottles we brought with us. There were 2 ciders, a few different ales and a couple of spirits but nothing that really grabbed me.

Around the site were some craft stalls, clothes stalls selling vintage bits-n-bobs and tie-dyed tshirts, jewellery stands, CD stalls selling the performing artists works, as well as others, and a herb stall where we picked up some rosemary and basil (a bit random I know!).

Seth Lakeman was the main act in the evening, and was definitely worth waiting around in the rain for!

We didn't get too wet and when he started playing it didn't really matter anyway- everyone was crowded together and jumping around so it soon got warm!

He played lots of favourites from his previous albums as well as a couple from the new release (Tales from the Barrel House), all really good- if you haven't come across Seth before I highly recommend! It was a great end to the day 🙂

The Hurlers from Poor Man's Heaven