beer festival

FaB Club Review
7th June 2008
Written by Liz Montgomery

FaB Club goes LARGE….

A first for FaB club - we were invited to provide a couple of sets at the
annual Thurrock Beer Festival - and also to enjoy a range of delicious real
ales, ciders and perrys with exotic names running through the whole
alphabet.

This long established event - which runs for 4 days every June staffed by
volunteers from the local CAMRA branch - is particularly well known for
its music programme: and Saturday afternoon is folk afternoon.

We were on a very big stage at the Civic Hall in Grays - good thing we
have our banners now - we were able to use them to great effect.

Rather than just featuring one or two of our performers we decided to run
it GAFs style - showcasing the range of talent we have as well as inviting
along a couple of special friends.

The afternoon kicked off with Rumford Morris - regulars at the Beer
Festival. We then had a short set - MC'd throughout by Tone Deaf
Leopard.

In the first short set FaBclubbers featured were Tone Deaf Leopard
themselves - giving the growing crowd a taste of "The Camera Never Lies"
and "4 x 4" to set the tone of the afternoon. Joe Migdal gave us a range of
songs and instruments across Nature's Wonderland, then a traditional
number with Kathy singing harmony - Kathy you need to sing for us
more, and then the extremely appropriate Nut Brown Ale, and John
Stafford on backing harmonica too. To finish off this first set Steve
O'Kane performed You make it easy and Fiona McBain joined him for
Solitary Hero. A pretty strong opening set, I think you'll agree!

Rumford gave us another series of great dances - with members of all ages,
then Ski provided an hour long set of her sweet songs.

The stage was then handed back to us - Sue busily making sure everyone
was in order and on time! And the audience was steadily growing -
sampling the different beers available and wandering in and out to the
garden - and all of our performers were warmly welcomed.

This second, longer set provided a real range of material to match the ales!
Special guests Moriarty and Roy kicked off with a brilliant range of
traditional numbers on guitar and melodeon including Monaghan, Bring
back the Child, Walter Salmons and a very lively reel. Don't say that folk
music is quiet - Ben performed tremendous and very dynamic versions of
Panama Hat and Vincent Black Lightning 1952. I think he got the loudest
applause of the whole afternoon. Another special guest - Simon Vogel -
made everyone laugh - and think a bit - with a range of his super poems.
Helen burned Dixie down and took us on a Midnight Special. Mike
survived the Double Vision perry in order to Miss her enormously
(another one the audience liked a lot), My kind of girl and The girl I'm
looking for - a theme there I think. Bill got everyone singing along to
Nicotine Ceiling (specially for those out in the garden) and We are the
Wrinklies. And a fun range of numbers from Alan Neville with 12 bar
blues, Leave the plumbing to plumbers and (I think) Suzanne - realise I
didn't check that one.

Gosh our time is nearly all used up -it's gone so fast and so well. So it's
everyone on stage and all together now - with a big jam version of Pay me
my money down which gets the audience singing along and whooping to
the chorus - and calling for encores. We can't get them off the stage now -
FaBclub is in fine voice - and we finish up the afternoon with riotous
versions of Worried Man Blues and House of the Rising Sun, to much
cheering from the crowd.

That was a really fun afternoon

A BIG THANK YOU to Sue for getting the playlist and the artistes in
good order, to Kathy and Joe for making the new photo montages for our
stall, to Anne for running the stall, to Sue for organising the badges.

THANKS to all of you that didn't perform but came along to support and
sing and cheer and share the good company.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU to Steve from Leigh for doing the sound so
well with such a diverse range of performers and instruments.

And a VERY BIG THANK YOU to Dave Watkins, Tim, Colin and the
rest of the Thurrock Beer Festival committee for asking us to perform and
making us feel so welcome.