A huge, huge thank you to the dozens of lovely people who turned up to our very first performance at The Romany in Bampton, your support, encouragement, applause and goodwill made it a very special night indeed. For some of us that wasn’t just Bampton Folk Club’s first performance but a personal first performance too and the response from the audience has left both debutants and the old grinders buoyed and eager to perform more. Once more, thank you!
We didn’t come away from The Romany completely unscathed though, two dozen enthusiastically delivered songs resulted in bruised hands from animalistic tamborining and bleeding fingers from rather too energetic strumming on top of some, also self-inflicted, less than clear heads.
A plea to the lovely people of Bampton and beyond who came to support us, we are really chuffed that we spotted a good number of you recording us on mobiles (see, these little things, that you thought we were worth recording, gives us such a buzz!). We’d really appreciate it if you could share those videos with us, indulge our egotistical side and let us watch ourselves… Well, partly that but mostly it will help us to see things that we can improve on for the future. Either share them with the club on Facebook, post them on our wall or pop them on YouTube or similar and send us a link.
So what’s next? Is Bampton Folk Club going to retreat to the village hall for another few months? Not a bit of it! We’ve already committed to three more dates before the end of the year:
1st December 2017 8:00pm – Bampton Garden Plants Christmas Shopping Day.
9th December 2017 8:00pm – The Morris Clown “Folk Barn” (aka The Function Room).
16th December 2017 8:00pm – The Chequers @ Brize.
Times are correct at the time of writing but please keep an eye on here and our Facebook page in case of any changes.
Don’t expect all the same songs either, we’re all buzzing after Saturday night and we’re determined to polish a few more tunes we’ve played with and to bring some completely new ones in too. We’re definitely keeping “Dark Girl Dressed in Blue” though…
And retreating back to the Village Hall? We’re not doing that either. Mike at The Romany is now going to host us in the warmth of his restaurant area on Sunday evenings for our regular weekly sessions and practice, how could we say no to warmth and beer? We’ll be starting there on Sunday 22nd October and making noise from about 7:00pm.
One final thing, if Saturday at The Romany was the first you’ve seen of Bampton Folk Club please remember that fundamentally that’s what we are. We welcome any musician of any instrument (I’m not sure if a theremin has ever been used in a folk number but if that’s your thing we’ll make it work) or none, so if you want to sing or just come along and listen then just don’t be a stranger. Come in, get a beer and pull up a chair. It’s time we went out there with this though, we really would like to find a fiddler, a box player (and we’re not fussy what flavour) and a whistler (that’s the Irish tin whistle rather than uncle George who whistles a mean ditty in the bath).
OK, that wasn’t the final thing, the final thing is the same as the first thing. Thank you again all you lovely people who came to see us on Saturday, genuinely we loved it because you made us feel great. Thank you, thank you and thank you again!