Text of a review in Songlines (November 2009)
"You Should Have Been There"
Purbeck Folk Festival
Steeple Leaze Farm, Steeple, Dorset, September 4-6 2009
It may well be that in ten years the sheep shed is in the shape of a pyramid, and the quiet green fields of Dorset that rock and roll down to the sea are covered in more varieties of tent than Heinz ever thought of, but for now, the utter perfectness of the very first Purbeck Folk Festival was totally ours – and a few hundred other brave and bold festival-goers.
What does £40 buy you these days? Four hundred uses of the facilities on Ryanair? A 1957 Beano annual in mint condition? Or the best that Dorset, and indeed the world, has to offer, gathered musically under the ever-generous banner of ‘folk,’ in the tiny village of Steeple. On a beautiful, secret valley farm campsite and with the sheep out to pasture making way for an extremely well-stocked real ale bar and homecooked food, two barns either side had also been cleared to provide crystal clear acoustics and a PA system worthy, actually better, than many a purpose-built venue.
Alex Roberts
In the High Barn we jumped to Jim Moray, jigged to Uiscedwr and sang along with Mawkin: Causley, and in the Low Barn we danced under the stars to local band Djambo doing Manu Chao covers. My big discovery was West Australian Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo band: a little bit Waifs, a little bit Gillian Welch – but actually entirely herself, and also Alex Roberts, playing lap steel literally on home-turf having lived on the farm one summer. There was also bluegrass from Corinne West accompanied by Doug Cox playing Dobro and Steve Skaith playing new Latin-tinged rhythms, plus some older tunes from his former band Latin Quarter.
Emily Barker
You should have been there? I’m really glad you weren’t but a few more shouldn’t hurt too much – so sign up now for next year!
Kim Hart
