What better to do on a day of heavy rain and floods than go and play music in a castle!? We’d been invited, after recommendation from a friend who volunteers for NT, to come and play music in Bodiam Castle (National Trust) for a Christmas Special event. Having been big fans of the castle for many years, we both leapt at the chance, despite having some slight misgivings about the idea of playing outside in December. We’ve done outdoor winter events before and to be honest they can play havoc with the instruments – guitars and clarinet go out of tune and frozen fingers don’t make for accurate playing!
But we were offered a small fee (travel costs) and the chance to sell our merchandise, plus it was a chance to promote our Your Stories In Song project and add to our 60 gigs so we agreed. I think this was the first in a series of their live music events for Christmas and not something they had organised before so once we’d agreed a time and set length we were left a bit to our own devices. I think it hadn’t been promoted much other than in the main NT e-shots about Christmas events at NT properties, of which there is a lot! There was a lot of competition with the NT as well as being a busy Christmas shopping day. Plus, icing on the Christmas cake, the weather was appalling! It rained and rained and rained so we drove through numerous floods on route. We had tried to get in touch with the lady who had booked us to check if it was still going ahead, but got no reply so just went for it.
When we arrived, just half an hour before we were advertised to start playing due to a slow, flood beset journey, we went to the ticket office to say ‘ we’re here to play some music’. We were greeted by 4 ecstatic people saying ‘oh it’s YOU!! We were just watching a video of you and think you’re wonderful!’. Which was a rather lovely welcome! They showed us how to get to the staff car park and we were met there by Bea who was liaising with us for the day. She was great, very attentive and really grateful to us for coming.
We parked as close as we could but Bodiam Castle has a moat which meant we had to ferry everything over the long bridge, through the gate house and into the courtyard. It had only just stopped raining when we arrived so we put everything in the tower, including setting up a small merch ‘table’ in one of the window bays. Bea made us tea so we trooped back over the bridge to the staff block for a quick drink and a biscuit. There was nobody else about so there was no rush to start playing.
When we got back to the castle we decided to start playing in the courtyard as the rain seemed to be holding off and literally nobody would be able to see or hear us in the tower. A few people gathered on the benches and walls near us as we started playing – about 12 to 14 people were there at one point and surprisingly most of them hung around for our first short set, considering it was damp and chilly. We stopped as we felt a few spots of rain and wanted to get the instruments into the dry. The acoustics in the courtyard are amazing. Singing without a microphone was not a problem at all as the sound just filled the space. We have 4 numbers which fit with Christmas so we did those and a couple of upbeat numbers which all went down well. Bea videoed us and put a short clip on their facebook page.
After a brief wee break, we payed a song in the tower, which also has wonderful acoustics, and a young family came in to listen. We played another couple of songs to ourselves then went back into the courtyard to finish our set to a crow and a few people who were wandering over the far side of the castle.
The staff were all really friendly and chatty, apologising for having so few people as an audience – 36 through the gate while we were there, their lowest number all year. One couple came into the tower as we were packing up and asked if we were about to start. When we said we’d just finished they said ‘oh I wish we had known, we’d have come earlier’.
We gave away one sticker (to a little girl), sold no merch, got no email sign ups and didn’t promote the song writing. Our instruments got damp as did our merch, but I think it’s all dried out now… But we got a nice little video on facebook which will have had quite a few views by now (I also took a video in the tower), we got to play in a flipping castle!!! and have been invited back to play in warmer weather next year. We enjoyed ourselves and ticked off another in our 60 gigs.
