Fiddle de dee!
We have been out three nights in a row. Today has been quiet and work-filled at home, but the rest of this week will be full of excursions. This is all very pleasant, if disconcerting. Briefly, then:
Friday evening was Horizontal Sunday at the Bridge: they are a trio of Folk Degree graduates whom we know from the student shows, and the venue is the legendary Bridge Hotel, above the Tyne by the High Level Bridge. The upstairs room has windows on two sides, and the trains rattle by - and the cars with their blue lights and sirens - but somehow it's a good atmosphere, and it was a fine show. We may or may not have been the only people there who were neither fellow students nor related to the band - oh, apart from one group who were the family of a very young ex-pupil of one of the band, who got up on stage in her cat-jumper and cat-ears Alice band, and played one very nervous fiddle tune for us. Which was fine. I like Horizontal Sunday more and more, and fortunately they have a selection of tunes on YouTube so I don't have to explain why.
On Saturday evening we went to dinner with friends we don't see often enough - but we had run into them at the Spiers and Boden gig at the Sage and made this date. They live a couple of miles away round the edge of town, and it was a beautiful evening, so we walked there - and back, which meant we could stay late and keep talking (and drinking - excellent Lebanese wines, some of which were not Chateau Musar, and was sauvignon blanc) and it was all good.
Last night we were at the Sage for Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, two fine musicians who have been playing together for a long time and are clearly very easy with each other. And yesterday was the last night of their tour, so they were well into their stride, and even more relaxed. Phil Cunningham does most of the talking and tells the jokes, and Aly Bain drops in the occasional dry remark: Shetlanders aren't very demonstrative, says Phil Cunningham, and claims that the Shetland Times printed the story of the Shetlander who loved his wife so much that he almost told her. Nothing restrained or undemonstrative about the music, though, and occasionally it put on such a turn of speed I'm surprised there wasn't smoke rising from the bow.
Friday evening was Horizontal Sunday at the Bridge: they are a trio of Folk Degree graduates whom we know from the student shows, and the venue is the legendary Bridge Hotel, above the Tyne by the High Level Bridge. The upstairs room has windows on two sides, and the trains rattle by - and the cars with their blue lights and sirens - but somehow it's a good atmosphere, and it was a fine show. We may or may not have been the only people there who were neither fellow students nor related to the band - oh, apart from one group who were the family of a very young ex-pupil of one of the band, who got up on stage in her cat-jumper and cat-ears Alice band, and played one very nervous fiddle tune for us. Which was fine. I like Horizontal Sunday more and more, and fortunately they have a selection of tunes on YouTube so I don't have to explain why.
On Saturday evening we went to dinner with friends we don't see often enough - but we had run into them at the Spiers and Boden gig at the Sage and made this date. They live a couple of miles away round the edge of town, and it was a beautiful evening, so we walked there - and back, which meant we could stay late and keep talking (and drinking - excellent Lebanese wines, some of which were not Chateau Musar, and was sauvignon blanc) and it was all good.
Last night we were at the Sage for Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, two fine musicians who have been playing together for a long time and are clearly very easy with each other. And yesterday was the last night of their tour, so they were well into their stride, and even more relaxed. Phil Cunningham does most of the talking and tells the jokes, and Aly Bain drops in the occasional dry remark: Shetlanders aren't very demonstrative, says Phil Cunningham, and claims that the Shetland Times printed the story of the Shetlander who loved his wife so much that he almost told her. Nothing restrained or undemonstrative about the music, though, and occasionally it put on such a turn of speed I'm surprised there wasn't smoke rising from the bow.