Sidmouth Festival Diary (Friday)

Overheard outside Sidmouth YMCA: “Daddy, do you suppose they named it after the song?”

Quite a long way into conversation with a man in the café that sells enormous breakfasts before we realise that he thought my “Priddy Festival” T-shirt was a “Prodigy” festival T-shirt.

I didn’t think it quite polite to take a photograph, but the person playing the piano accordion in the trade stand that sells piano accordions was John Jones. As in “Turn out the lights” and “Here Comes the Flood" and "Jesus Walks In Idaho." .

Middle-Bar Singers are kind of a festival unto themselves. They have sessions every lunchtime and evening at a pub which is not called the Middle Bar. (It is the Anchor. The Anchor also has ceilidhs in the back courtyard, so the singing in the upper room is in conflict with the tunes in the car park. This weirdly adds to the fun.) Like all groups that have been running for a long time, it has a certain Masonic quality with traditions and jokes that the newcomer has to pick up. (Everyone stands up in certain choruses as if they were singing a hymn.) The longest-standing members, or possibly the committee, sit on a special bench and always start and finish the session. Otherwise, a physical stick is passed round [to indicate who's turn it is.] There is some serious singing (we had Rose of Allan Dale and Sea Cole today), but it skews to comical and music hall songs which obviously suits me.

This afternoon, a big guy with a hat and something which was not a Prodigy T-shirt sang Don’t Go In Them Lions Cage and the German Musicianer. No one actually threw anything at him, so I suppose that is a win….He already has a notebook full of songs he ought to learn.

Shower gel leaked over carefully chosen wet/dry bag and micro towel in my Everything Bag. 

Evening concert was the John Jones trio, which I liked very much. It felt like a scaled-down version of the Oysterband, because it was. Jones has the same stage presence in the cut-down format that he did when he was fronting a big band. [The same rather 1980s body language, as well.] 

After the concert, we went up the hill to the Bulverton —the loud dancing tent with the club vibe—to join the campfire session. The current weather situation meant that actual campfires are banned, of course. There was a man singing Streets of London, so I knew I was in the right place. I sang Passing Through, Little Boy Billy, and Casey Jones. 

At the rate of five a day, I will have sung through the Rilstone Songbook by the end of the week. 

A man in the bar said, “Aren’t you the fellow who sings Old Uncle Tom Cobley?”, which was nice because I am.

Tomorrow is the first full day of the festival!