Kaleidophonica

FolkEast Day Three

The weather improved considerably today after yesterday's heavy downpours and the day got off to a cracking start with a highly entertaining show by lookseeclick and her cohorts in the Norwich Ukulele Society. I sang and danced along throughout and their rendition of OutKast's 'Hey Ya!' may possibly be the most hilarious thing I've ever heard! It will certainly live long in my memory!

After all that, something completely different was in order and I was thrilled to see Spiro play an absolutely mesmerising set. I blipped their brilliant mandolin player, Alex Vann, back in March, so today I bring you a picture of their equally talented violin player, Jane Harbour. When attempting to describe their music this afternoon I called it "the sound of the universe" and that's still the closest I can come to a description now.

After chilling out to Spiro it was time for another change of pace and I was eager to attend the ceilidh hosted by a member of my very own camping party, the delightful Birgitta, with a band specially formed for the event, Pax 7. Not only did Birgitta play a mean fiddle but she explained the dance steps in such a way that even a buffoon such as myself (more used to what I like to think of as 'freestyle' dancing...) could almost get to grips with them. Nevertheless, I suspect that a Willow has seldom been Stripped as inelegantly as I did it this afternoon! I was exhausted afterwards but attempting to trip the light fantastic in my wellies may have contributed a little to my fatigue...

Luckily I was able to relax by eating a slice of delicious caramel layer cake and listening to the wonderful Jackie Oates and her band, featuring my favourite cellist - Barney Morse Brown.

Hippies old and young were also treated to a rather splendid performance by Mike 'Incredible String Band' Heron and his spiritual (grand?) children, Trembling Bells. Those members of my party old enough to have spent many a blissed-out evening listening to the original version of 'A Very Cellular Song' back in 1968 were to be spotted giving it loads of the aforementioned freestyle dancing down the front as Heron and co relived those heady and far out days!

The only sadness of the day was that, for logistical reasons, we decided to leave before the night's headline act, The Imagined Village, played. Gutting in many ways but as I only saw them 3 months ago I can't really complain.

It's been a fabulous few days and it will be hard to return to the 'real world'...

For those of you who aren't already bored rigid, I'm working on getting a FolkEast blipfolio together so will let you know when I've got it organised!