This was our second time playing St Edith Folk Club. It’s in a great hall in Otford, near Sevenoaks. That’s just over an hour’s drive away, not easy accessible by train for us. Car parking is free after 6pm but you have to get a ticket from the machine. The group that organise the club are a really friendly bunch, all working together toast the hall up, run the bar and refreshments. The usual sound guy wasn’t there but the stand in was really good and was fine for us, but the foldback speakers (sort of busking amps) caused an issue for the headline act as they had a drum kit and had difficulty hearing themselves on stage – it sounded great in the audience.
The Luke Jackson Trio were lovely – 3 guys performing together, their previous gig had been in the Royal Albert Hall with Jools Holland – and we got to have a nice long chat in the ‘green room’ (changing rooms). Food is laid on for the performers – there’s a kitchen next to the green room for making tea and there are snacks galore. I think I ate one too many spinach muffins after our set!
The audience all arrived in time for our set which is unusual – you expect people to arrive a bit later, coming to see the headline. But we did have a lovely full audience who were really responsive, we had some singing along and got a bit of chat going. The event is filmed and videos go up on Youtube, so that’s a bonus. You can see old ones here https://www.youtube.com/@stedithfolk3303/videos – not sure when new ones will be up.
We really enjoyed staying for the main act. The merch table was by the exit – we’d stood there during the interval after our set and had a few chats with people, but sold no merch and of course at the end of the evening everyone is there to get merch from the headline act so you feel a bit of a twerp standing by yourself. But it has to be done. I handed out a few of the Your Stories In Song leaflets and we had a couple of stories shared with us. Discussed with the organiser of Cranfest about performing there again this year but sadly we are already busy on those dates.
