We had played the free stage in 2022 and really enjoyed it so were really pleased to be playing again. Sunday morning, just before lunchtime was a good time for us. We made sure to have a hearty breakfast and drove up to the car park by the rec as it was pretty hot and lugging all of our gear from the campsite would have meant us arriving hot, sweaty and tired! Amazingly the campsite was fairly quiet and restrained on Friday night. On Saturday it was a little louder and later, but no music playing onto the night. The first banjo was plucked just after 9am quickly followed by a single melodion which was remarkably restrained considering we were surrounded by numerous morris sides – ‘a mischief of morris dancers’ was the collective noun suggested by our neighbour, Richard from Tatterjacks Morris of Brixton.
On Saturday we’d had some free time so went to the main arena and the free stage to hear 2 bands that we know, Henty and English then Ceol Na Mara, and had a chat with both. There were some sound issues with feedback from the on stage monitors, a dodgy lead and it sounded like one of the speakers was on the way out at one point, but Andy the sound guy coped admirably, correcting issues quickly. It was scorchingly hot again and we sat in the front row which was in the shade then found that most of the seats behind us had been moved into the craft marquee for another event so not many other people could sit in the shade.
The band on stage before our Sunday set were quite a large group and took a while to clear the stage, but we managed to get set up and started just 5 minutes late. We’d remembered to take our banner which looked great – shame we forgot to take any photos! The audience come and go at this venue, listening numbers ranged between 30 and 50, we had a few that stayed the course and lots stop to listen for a while as they walk around the arena. Our set was an hour long and we finished once again with the Romance at the Panto singalong which everyone joined in with.
As Jim cleared the stage, Josie handled CD sales (4) and mailing list sign ups (2), plus gave away several free badges to kids … and morris dancers.
It was good to have a chat with Alan the organiser after our set – we’d not actually met him before. He lives in Ashford but Tenterden was the best town to suit a folk festival. He’s been running it for 30 years now! The festival gets great support from Tenterden, the local council and businesses. You can see that it draws a lot of visitors and trade into the town, as well as the music of course! Alan also edits and publishes Around Kent Folk magazine. Jim had been in email contact with him last year and, because we played the free stage then (no fee) we were in a better position to get a paid booking this year. Also, after the 2022 folk festival performance, we were invited by Pat Sweeney to play Spirit of Tenterden, another paid festival gig. We met him at the folk festival this year and he’s asked us to play Spirit of Tenterden again 😀