Live Concert

The live performance of the project, held at Kempsford village hall was completely sold out and a special night. It was inspiring to see so many family and villagers, both young and old coming out to support the project. Following a support slot by my folk trio Mishra, myself and the band performed the tracks of the EP featuring the samples and spoken word. It was a pleasure and thrill to perform these tracks to an audience of villagers and to witness the reactions on their faces to the stories. I was surprised by peoples enthusiasm, hearing many more tales from audience members and selling plenty of special edition CDs. This showed to me that for lots of the people who came, it was about more than just the music and about the community tales.

The concert and EP launch does not necessarily mark the end of the project. I realised along the way and particularly at the concert, that people have so many stories they are keen to share. With a longer period to collect and research tales I would one day like to created a full album of local songs. The positive feedback at the concert ensured me that capturing these stories in the form of song has a powerful and moving impact on audiences. I witnessed an enthusiasm for a shared local community that reminded me of why I was inspired to start the project.

EP and booklet

The EP and booklets have arrived from the printers and I am so excited to share them with the world! The booklet contains more information about each of the tracks - the lyrics and where the stories came from and will be on sale with the EP as a special addition at the concert for £10. The cover design is an oil painting by David Griffin of The Queen's Head pub in Whelford, featured in one of the tracks. I'm very grateful to my mum for hand-making the bags with a unique Wayside Tales stamp too!

Arranging the tracks for live performance

Rehearsals have begun in preparation for the concert at Kempford village hall and I have discovered that translating the EP tracks to a stage performance is more difficult than I imagined. I want to give the audience an accurate representation of the recorded EP so have recruited four musicians to perform with me on the night. The line-up includes Joss Mann-Hazell on bass, Manon McCoy on flute and vocals, and two musicians who were involved in the creation of the EP, Emma Hetherington providing spoken word and Ford Collier on guitar. The addition of processed samples has proved the most difficult aspect of the live performance, overcome by programming individual samples into a footswitch module which I will operate on stage. I also made the decision to have Emma recite the spoken word as talking and playing banjo simultaneously was too difficult to execute well. The tracks will be performed in the same order as the EP, with programmed samples to link tracks, such as Pink and What Do You Wanna Know. Most importantly however, the live performance gives me and opportunity to tell the stories behind the songs to the audience. Some of the people who inspired the songs will be at the concert so it will be a valuable chance to explain how I developed their memories and anecdotes into music.

Tickets for the concert are available thought the project home page.