Amy Speace of Applewood Road at the Prince Albert

I was delighted to hear about this music gig some weeks ago when I received an email from Emily Barker. She is an Australian musician and singer who has been living in our community for some years and she is very supportive of our local music venues.  A couple of years ago I blipped a picture of the final gig of her former band, the Red Clay Halo, whom I'd only discovered a short time before their demise.

The recent email was reminding her followers that her song 'Nostalgia' was again being used as the title music for the final British tv series of 'Wallander', starring Kenneth Branagh for which she won a BAFTA award in its first series. Emily also said that she would soon be touring in the UK and the USA with her new band called Applewood Road, whose first album has been very well received. 

Soon after they formed and recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, they came to do some public appearances in Europe and played their first gig here in Stroud at our favourite music venue, the Prince Albert pub. Of course I was there, with a camera, and they gave me permission to film them. Now they are on tour again in the UK and as a warm-up to their Glastonbury gig on Sunday they'd decided to return to the Prince Albert for another warm-up gig.  How lucky we are.

I recommended them to my great friend Pip, who is a keen singer and works closely with choirs in the Bristol area (he is organising the Sing for Water fund raising event in Bath on 12th July) and he decided to combine a visit to us with the gig.  I cooked supper for us and we all headed up the hill to the pub.

We sat close to the tiny stage and I spotted Amy sitting at the next table and asked if I cold take pictures again. She is great fun and delightful and agreed immediately. The evening began with Emily, Amy and Amber Rubarth each performing a few solo songs, as they all have a been solo artists for many years in quite different parts of the country, Americana and folk music genres. Together their individual and harmony singing shines and they obviously really enjoy each other's company and respect each other's differing talents. After Glastonbury they will be touring in the UK as the support for the distinguished American songwriter and singer Mary Chapin Carpenter.

I am very annoyed with myself.  I broke all my rules by not preparing properly for the job of taking photographs. I ended up using my treasured 70-200mm zoom, but forgot that it still had a polarising filter on it. The drop in available light meant a high ISO setting was needed in the very low light conditions in the pub, as they have very little stage lighting.

But I liked this picture using that lens and I also used a 24-70mm which I used for my  'Extra Photo' taken during their final song, showing them all singing together.  From left to right 'Applewood Road' are Amy Speace, Amber Rubarth and Emily Barker. Their friend from Nashville, sitting behind Amy, played double bass on their first album and accompanied them here on a few songs.  She is also touring with another friend and will be playing here at the Prince Albert next Thursday, which we may well go to. Having seriously good American musicians playing in your local is not to be missed.