It’s been a while since the last blog but Royston Arts Festival and the necessary aftermath of checking invoices, gathering feedback, holding a post-festival review and thanking participants is now pretty well done and dusted. Longer term, three podcasts came out of the arts festival, the first a preview of the arts festival itself containing a fair amount of music from various artists taking part. The second focused on the festival concerts taking place in 2025 with particular emphasis on Tin Giants, Bird In The Belly and USA duo Hungrytown. The third features many of the artists which took part in Royston MusicFest over the last ten years including The Trials of Cato, Katie Spencer, Thursday’s Band, Chris Fox, Black Scarr and a host of other luminaries on the regional folk scene.
All three podcasts can be found HERE on Unicorn Folk under the heading ‘Specials’ in the index page to the Filby’s Folk podcasts and the MusicFest podcast can also be found on the Royston MusicFest website where you can also find 5 concert videos filmed for the 2020 online only (Covid-affected) festival. I plan to start adding to the catalogue of Filby’s Folk podcasts very soon but from now on will do so on a more irregular, rather than a weekly basis, primarily when I think I have a good number of songs from new albums to intersperse with more traditional folk and folk rock music.
The title of this blog, an old Kink’s number, is explained in the fact that an almanac is a regularly published listing, sometimes actually a calendar containing information, but in this sense refers to the Unicorn Diary which has just been updated to include gigs in this region from October to the end of December, so providing a source of reference when planning your festive folk activities. Despite being most of the way through October already there are still 94 gigs listed between now and Christmas, and as usual, the Diary can be found with the other Listings on the main Unicorn Folk website.
Rather than pick out a few local gigs of interest I will let you find them by consulting the Diary and instead draw attention to some other stuff of interest. Elizabeth & Jameson have a new album Way Out West which they are promoting with a tour and you can catch them at Baldock Folk Club tomorrow evening or, if that’s too short notice, at Royston Live on Thursday 27th November. I hope to be reviewing the album soon but it’s always a good evening listening to those two and you can see their tour details in the (newly rechristened) ‘Featured Events’ section of Unicorn Folk.
Veteran folk rockers, or ‘frockers’ as I suppose they might call themselves, Fairport Convention are out on the road again for their Autumn Tour before they temporarily split up to join their various Christmas bands. The link to their tour details can also be found in the ‘Featured Events’ section of Unicorn Folk.
Do have a look at the new ‘Featured Events’ section of Unicorn Folk which you will find contains posters for a couple of charity fundraisers and Unicorn Folk is always happy to support this type of folk related event free of charge.
There is a new Review of a Ninebarrow concert that I went to recently to read HERE and, although not writing an official review, I am looking forward to visiting Cecil Sharp House this coming Saturday 25th to see Blowzabella in concert for the first time in a long while. They are on a short tour at the moment covering just a few dates a link to which can be found in the Gigs & Tours Listing on the main Unicorn Folk website.