someone who's doing some things
Things are going on all the time!, This category is about things I’ve been to or sometimes would have liked to have been to. Also, it’s about events I’m a part of or have had some hand in running.
Another great memory from WOMAD days was of Nouvelle Vague. I went to see them in the Big Red Tent and thought they were amazingly good fun. I subsequently bought quite a lot of their tracks. I say their tracks, of course for the most part they are covers, but what excellent covers they are. Truly inspired.
I’d like to see them again, I think they had a good stage presence, but I need seem to see them on anywhere. I think I’d go if I had the chance.
As I was thinking about WOMAD I started remembering some of the high points over the years and I thought I’d share them. One such high point was when WOMAD was back in Reading, before it moved to Charlton Park in Wiltshire. I remember seeing Mitsoura for the very first time there. They were amazing. Something truly new and completely different from anything I’d heard before.
I went to see them again after that and bought their only two albums. I was disappointed that they didn’t do more. It was a shame that they only made those two albums, but that’s how it is. Even so, I’m glad I know their music. Glad I had the chance to see them live a couple of times. That was all down to WOMAD.
So this is the second year I’ve been at the Liberty Festival with SoundLab. This year was a bit damp and wet, but fun nevertheless. We still had a lot of people come along and play and enjoy themselves, so it was a good day all in all. I’m glad that I was able to be a part of it.
Even though it was wet we had a steady stream of people wanting to try out new ways to make music, and experiment.
I wasn’t able to spend the whole weekend at WOMAD this year, I was only able to go for the day this year. Which was ok. The weather was pretty awful on the Friday, so the Saturday was a good option in the end.
So as always here’s the obligatory photo of the flags. I think you have to take one as part of the terms and conditions of the ticket. I heard a few interesting things on Saturday. Possibly the most interesting was Hannah Peel, who I’ll be listening to some more of soon enough.
It was also good to see Hossam Ramsay doing a workshop at WOMAD this year. Quite a while ago I did a workshop where Hossam taught for a day, and that was excellent. I really enjoyed it.
So I’m glad I went. It was good to meet up with some old friends and see how the festival has come on in a year. I’ve been going for a long time now, not as long as some of my friends though, and it’s sort of become an annual tradition.
I like WOMAD, but this year it felt a little crowded. I’m not sure why. It was good to go for the day, this year that was enough for me.
A nice festival and bigger than last year, or so it seemed. At least it must have been a bit bigger as they actually ran out of beer at the Oxted festival on the Saturday night. I’m not sure that I’ve ever been to a beer festival where that’s happened before.
It was a good event. Music wasn’t bad, food had some interesting choices too. But if anyone offers you a sausage role called a ‘ring burner’, just say no. Take my advice.
I meant to add these to the post about the rail trip.
And I know that I should have included this one too.
A couple of old friends and I decided to take a train holiday of sorts. In fact, to refer to it as just a train holiday does no justice to the vast amount of planning that actually went into this trip. It didn’t entirely work out for us in that we didn’t get all the journeys done that we thought we might, but it was good fun all the same.
We had rail rovers that covered a huge area in the North East of England.
These made it possible for us to travel all over the place just with these. It was amazing as I didn’t even know that these things existed before this trip.
Our trip had three bases over three nights. These were, Carlisle, on our first night, Settle, on the second, and Blackpool on the third night. I hadn’t been to any of these, so it was going to be interesting no matter what. Although of course, some places are more interesting than others, if you know what I mean.
The first stage to Carlisle was very pleasant indeed. We started our trip with G&T’s and moved on to a few pints of a very pleasant ale. Off the train and on to Windemere for another couple of beers!
Day two saw us on the historic Carlisle to Settle line, although we had a few false starts on the way. We stopped off just after the Ribblehead viaduct in Ribblehead station, which was very pleasant indeed. Settle is a little market town and we stayed the night there in a lovely B&B.
From Settle we went out to Hellifield station and managed to catch sight of the Fellsman steam train going through.
The station itself was lovely and retained some original features, although not all. Here are some of the details …
From their we got another historical line. This time the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, which is the line that was used in the film “The Railway Children”. In fact, we went through the station that was used. Oakworth station.
It was a lovely line. Very picturesque and pleasant, and it would have been even better if it hadn’t been tipping down with rain. But never mind. It was a very pleasant trip all the same. One of the reasons it was so pleasant was …
Our final stop on Wednesday was Blackpool, and we arrived just before this lovely sunset.
We didn’t really get enough time to do much in Blackpool, we visited one or two pubs but that was about it before we had to leave in the morning to get on with the final day of our trip. However, before we left I grabbed a picture of this great old bus.
Our last day had a couple of notable highlights to it. The first was Lancaster, which we visited twice in one day. The first time finding a nice little bar just near the station with an excellent pint from the Settle brewery called “Light”, and also sampling Fiddler’s crisps.
Very nice too actually. The second highlight was visiting Carnforth station where scenes from “Brief Encounter” were filmed. There’s a heritage centre there and a lovely 1940’s style tea room as well.
So we ended up back at Lancaster for a pint in the Robert Gillow before the train back to London.
And a very good pint it was too. So to end I thought I’d include the last photo from the trip which was taken at the Doric Arch pub at Euston, it sort of sums up everything I think.
Cheers!
A few pictures from the talk I gave about SoundLab at Abbey Road Studios the other week.
I think I’ve been going for about 10 years now, so in some ways it would be a shame not to go, but the line up isn’t inspiring me this year, which is a shame. I’m thinking about it, but not convinced as yet. I may just go for the day. I’ve done that a few times before and it’s ok. Not the same as being there for the weekend, but if the weather forecast is bad then it’s a viable alternative to a damp weekend.
I’ll keep thinking about it for now.
What started me thinking about it was listening to this box set from last year, which has got some excellent tracks on it.
Which must mean that 2015 is time to go again. I think that’s only right isn’t it?
I am Ashley Elsdon 