Leeds Festival Fringe 2010 Takes place 19th - 25th August 2010

more information see http://leedsfestivalfringe.org

Below is a video of the recent Warm-Up event held on Sunday 30th May 2010

Just listening to A Handful of Earth by Fantastic Merlins and it is brilliant. Full review to follow.

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House Concerts (York)

House concerts have been happening in the States for at least ten years to my knowledge and their Alma Mater seems to be the picturesque village that is New York City!

Nicki and Tony Fothergill seem to be the pioneers of the project this side of the pond and have been running the concerts at their cottage home, in a genuinely picturesque suburb of the old English capital for some time now, racking up a healthy clutch of shows featuring some eighty plus artistes.

The deal is this; Nicki and Tony, having listened to suggestions from existing attendees, invite an artiste/band to play at their home. They then extend the invitation to other parties who've previously attended or expressed interest . If they want to go they simply make a reservation and pledge a donation, usually around £10.00, to cover costs and artiste's expenses. On the night you simply turn up, grab a seat on a first come, first served basis and enjoy yourself! Some refreshments are provided but it helps if you B.O.B.

On the night I attended we were treated to a performance by those darlings of eighties angst The Woodentops. Well rather we were treated to a solo performance by head Woodentop Rolo McGinty, accompanied by double bass player Mal Darwen. By his own confession this was Rolo's first ever solo gig but he seemed to enjoy himself immensely. I do not intend to do a fully-fledged review of his performance, as the main purpose of this piece is to highlight the gigs themselves but I would say that not being familiar with The Woodentops previously, I was mightily impressed by a lot of the material and most particularly by a newly-composed ambient piece called Bathyscope which lasted over ten minutes and was nominally reminiscent of Gavin Bryars' Sinking of the Titanic. Rolo performed the whole piece on a seldom seen, Martin solid-body electric and pedals; No mean feat!Special mention must also be given to Mal Darwen's virtuoso performance on thumb-piano on another number!

I understand that there is a 'dance' side to The Woodentops oeuvre and one of the audience had clearly ingested substances which suggested he'd thought this would be a performance in that genre. Unfortunately for him it wasn't and unfortunately for the rest of us he couldn't un-ingest whatever he'd taken. To be honest he was a complete pain, constantly interrupting the performance with his banal observations and making comments during songs over-loudly. Having said that, after a while most of us seemed to get used to his distractions which took on almost comedic properties and to a large extent and purpose he became part of the show. I was later assured by Tony that this is the only time such a thing has happened and the only reason he wasn't thrown out was because he is apparently, The Woodentops biggest fan.

After playing for a good two hours Rolo finally encored his last. Both he and several members of the audience looked like they'd have been happy to have gone on throughout the night, but took pity on the rest of us sleepyheads.

Overall I was mightily impressed and would say that this sort of thing is here to stay and will become a very important part of the whole gig circuit in years to come. The Fothergills have a lovely home which lends itself extremely well to intimate concerts. I have to add that I perceived an element of uneasiness in the behaviour of the wider audience, as if they weren't sure how to behave. That's understandable really as this is a completely different kind of social activity and it lies in a territory with which most of us are not familiar. In many ways it's more like going to a party where you don't know anybody than going to a bog-standard music gig. In the final analysis that may just have been me and my social dysfunctionality, as it was obvious that many members of the audience did know each other.

If you want to know more about upcoming concerts or simply want to be kept in the link, just message address below the heading to this article, or join the Facebook group House Concerts York.

Richard Pearson