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Beverley Folk Festival

Beverley Folk Festival 2011
Friday June 17th - Sunday June 19th
Multiple Venues
Beverley Yorkshire

Beverley Folk Festival - Sunday

Time for a complete change of pace and style. I'd not visited the Concert & Dance Marquee since the ceilidh yesterday, but it's a very different type of dance over there today, hoedown. Hoedown is being pulled into the general Americana family, but I think that really does it an injustice, but I guess this isn't the place to discuss the broad church that is the acoustic spectrum.

The Whiskey Dogs Hoedown Band, are, so I'm told, normally a four piece, but I'm definitely counting five people on stage, apparently the mandolin player is the recent addition. It gives them the classic line up of fiddle, bass, guitar, mandolin and banjo, all strings no percussion.

There's a whole host of people already up dancing to some pretty high energy stuff, but hoedowns aren't all about energetic dances, there's things, like breathing that people quite like doing as well. Whiskey Dogs Hoedown Band, strike a wonderful balance between songs and dance tunes.

Close your eyes and it's easy to be transported off to the Appalachian mountains, by good old timey music. The band know they're way about the instruments and it doesn't really matter how good a dancer you are cause as the need requires, they'll call you through the tunes.

It never ceases to amaze me how far some people will go to try and get the look of an act together as well as the feel. This is about having a goodtime and having your band performing in a style that looks the part really adds to the atmosphere. They very and I mean, very, nearly got me up and dancing at one point.

Back to the Wold Top Marquee to catch 4 Square and this time I can really understand what the buzz is about. The band seem more comfortable, relaxed even, though the stage is smaller they've got more movement.

In the more enclosed space of the Wold Top Marquee, they put together a set that can only really be described as stunning. The quality of the playing is matched by real verve and passion, both band and audience seem to have a real affinity for what is happening on stage.

The levels of interactivity between the musicians, their instruments and each other has a very natural flow to it. 4 Square are a band that are completely at ease with their music and each other and that attitude comes out through the speakers, this really is a band that has got that elusive X factor.

The thing I really like about them is that they seem happy to experiment with the music, at times there is a very jazz approach to how they tackle the tunes and how they take flight in a direction that you weren't expecting them to go, but still, somehow, arrive at the place you expected.

I pretty much decided that as far as writing about Beverley this was a great place to leave it with a massive crescendo of a finale. The Wold Top Marquee would continue for a few hours yet, but this is where the writing stops. A great festival and one that I can highly recommend, particularly if you're not doing anything on the 15 - 17 June 2012.

Neil King