Gig Report: Bentworth Blues Festival, 16th August 2008

[jules]

And lo, having just come back from a most enjoyable trip to La Belle France, it was time for a proper FD gig! The Bentworth Blues Festival... aaaahh... firstly, what do I recall from last years event? RAIN! Rain. Rain rain rain rain rain. And then a little more rain for good measure. What was it to hold for this year? Who could say... well in fact, rain was not on the agenda, but then sadly neither were large crowds! Attendance was well down, who could say why? Credit Crunch? Economic Crisis? I don't know about that but it's a convenient, and readily available, excuse.

With that said, as usual it was one of those "just go for it" type days. Luna and I got down there early because I wanted to watch some of the other bands. Just in time, in fact, to see Sam Kelly's Blues Band do their thang on the back of the lorry stage on the village green. Very nice! Unfortunately their guitarist LeBurn was caught up in woeful traffic/accidents etc and consequently only arrived in time to play the last couple of songs! Poor guy, what should have been a 90 min drive took him 4 hours! Paul Jobson however did a great job of "fronting" the band from behind his keys. Sweet stuff. Sam also called Luna and I up for a bit, which was amusing in that I'm not really a singer, and didn't have any guitar gear set up to sit in with! So, Luna sang, and I jumped around (a bit) and smiled (a lot) - fun!

On to our set - we had the good fortune to headline on the main stage, which was sweet. I thought we played well and gave a good account of ourselves. Certainly having been on holiday I had a lot of pent up "gigging-ness" to get out of my system. Well, you know what I mean? You miss gigging! And the need to play wells up inside of you, waiting to get out! That's what I was trying to say. The sounds was good, the crowd were into it, we shifted some CDs, and went home with smiles aplenty. What more could you ask for?!?

A great way to spend a Saturday...