Third visit to Easton Park and the second where we should have turned out for the three days rather than just the one. Definitely next year! Paul Spencer and Ken Ansell have clearly got friends in very high places – another cracking, sunny day to accompany the excellent music, good food and fine ales. I was less familiar with most of the artists performing this year, so it’s good to report such a terrific standard across all the stages on Saturday.
As it was such a fabulous day, we stationed ourselves on the Green for the afternoon session. This did mean occasionally running around like the proverbial blue arsed fly trying to catch at least a couple of songs from artists on the other stages, which is not a good look for a man of maturing years!
There wasn’t a weak performance on the Green all afternoon, although obviously some appealed more than others through personal musical preference. Local Oliver Daldry opened up proceedings with a fine set of personal songs, followed by Jason Serious and his band, an early highlight. Accomplished songwriting and playing, encouraged you to immediately invest in their CD ‘Undercover Folk’. The Rainbow Girls were up next, describing themselves as a “gypsy Americana stomp band”, which pretty much covers it. A fine fit for a sunny Saturday afternoon on the green with a local beer.
The Redlands Palomino Company followed, country rock from the UK with the heart and soul of authentic Nashville. Difficult to believe music so strongly identified with one area of America could be played so authentically by anyone from somewhere which is in many ways its cultural antithesis. Definitely a cut above.
The Carrivick Sisters served up a fine set of UK bluegrass before another highlight of the day from I See Hawks In LA – Americana at its best, a mixture of roots and country stylings coupled with wit and many a surprising lyrical twist and turn. It was clear why the band is so well respected and why their albums are critically acclaimed – another group to investigate further thanks to Maverick.
The afternoon session finished with the excellent The Good Lovelies and Old Man Luedecke. Excellent harmony singing, accomplished playing and lots of humour from the Juno nominated Lovelies and a banjo driven singer songwriter set from Chris Luedecke. He writes well, and it was a good set, but I would have preferred a more raucous (i.e. loud) end to the afternoon session, just to finish off in style. I know, very shallow! Coincidentally, the last two performers of the afternoon were both Canadian, as were quite a few others peppered around the various stages, which illustrates just how well roots/folk/traditional music plays in Canada right now. The quality and variety of music currently coming out of Canada is astonishing.
Managed to catch snatches of other performances throughout the afternoon. Of those I heard, the harmonies and songs of Trevor Moss & Hannah Lou deserve particular mention, as do Hatful of Rain, self styled British folk with Appalachian roots. Much championed by our very own Bob Harris and Mike Harding, it’s not difficult to see why. Caught one song from David Latto, Americana with a Scottish twang (and kilt!). He sounded very fine indeed, almost insulting to only catch the one song. Too many choices!
It got even worse in the evening, with performances taking place across four venues. For the record, we chose; Dan Raza and the Shrouds in the Barn, a performance that warrants early investigation of the next album (according to my fellow gig goer, he also looked like a young Jackson Browne, but I let that one pass). Andrew Duhon in the Peacock Cafe, talented singer songwriter from New Orleans. The Henry Brothers in the Tack Room – described as Norfolk’s finest murder balladeers (I might venture to suggest they might be the only, although as they’re from Norfolk, you never know). Always worth seeing the Maverick regulars, they were as entertaining as ever. The hilarious cover of ‘Psycho Killer’ was inspired but the complete disintegration of the double bass was a tad unlucky. At least it happened at the end of the set.
Finished off with Dennis Ellsworth (another Canadian) in the Peacock Café and Leeroy Stagger in the Barn. The Peacock Cafe was packed. We may have been drawn by the promise of the Spencers featuring as the rhythm section and B.J. Cole on pedal steel but we left seriously impressed with the quality of the songs and Ellsworth’s incredibly expressive and soulful vocals. Leeroy Stagger provided a high energy rootsy finish to Saturday’s proceedings although, unusually, we found the sound mix seemed better at the back and outside the barn rather than closer to the stage.
How to judge a festival? Maybe by how much you want to buy the CDs or download the music of those you’ve seen performing. In which case Maverick 2013 is a clear winner. I said this after we first attended the Maverick but it bears repeating. A masterclass in how to put on a friendly, well organised, perfectly sized festival where music is still the top attraction.
Hope this year was a commercial success and will definitely be back next year, this time for all three days…….I may have said that before?
As I am now officially a grumpy old man, I do have one gripe. And I may just have commented on this before about other festivals (trust me, I’m like an old record). I understand that there were around 2,000 people attending. Family friendly, with kids, dogs and grown up kids all thoroughly enjoying themselves. And yet I suspect that there will always be around 5% of numpties, whatever the crowd size. Still don’t understand why folks go to festivals, turn their back on the performer, shout to each other incessantly through every performance and often fail to actually acknowledge there’s any live music taking place at all. Apart from being incredibly rude (to performer and audience alike), surely their local park is more convenient – they could get drunk there and piss everyone off for free!.