Moseley Folk Festival

I missed the Moseley Folk Festival last year due to tiredness and lack of funds at the end of the Summer, but this year thanks to a tip off from Created in Birmingham, we applied to be stewards – you work one four and a half hour shift and get to stay the whole day.

Im very glad we did. Whilst waiting to be allocated a job I got chatting to a guy who had seen me play at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre and he suggested we take over his job selling programmes which meant dealing with some very happy members of the public now and again whilst sitting down with a great view of one of the main stages.

One of the acts we saw during this time was a welcome blast from the past – Simon Fowler of Ocean Colour Scene fame. Ive seen OCS a few times and always enjoyed them (one time even helping promote them at the Aston Villa Leisure Centre for a charity gig in my brief foray into music promotion), but I always enjoyed him more solo, preferably in a small room, which he has always been capable of filling with his powerful, yet sensitive voice.

He opened with “The Circle” which was proper top of the pops friendly easy rock when played with the whole band, but achieves real levels of poignancy in its acoustic incarnation and also included Robin Hood, my favourite song of his which I used to occasionally yell out at him to perform back in the day.

Later on sitting with the audience and supping wine and chips I enjoyed Fairport Convention – a bit “folky” (obviously) but as strong as you might imagine with their experience and with some good energy and moments of beauty, specially from the occasionally more abstract sounding sections generated by the two violins.

The atmosphere was lovely, and a great credit to the organisers – a highly recommended experience.

Rich
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