Radigun, Three Cane Whale and Arlet in the woods

Thursday 17th August,
secret woodland location near Canterbury

This'll probably be the last one of these woodland gigs for me this year. While setting up for it I learned from a voicemail that my dad was in hospital in Wisconsin, and it was serious. I was on a plane less than twelve hours later. So the gig itself rather passed me by, but it was good to have something to get on with, something to focus my mind a bit and then distract it.

My musical brother Sven, visiting from Belgium, had the difficult job of playing a hastily prepared solo set after having heard my news. But his versions of "I Can't Stand the Rain" and "Kaya" were just what were needed at the time. A great set, including his comic metal-tinged German-language "Rambo III". Love you Sven.

I'd planned another of these gigs for the next evening, which was able to go ahead anyway because of a few kind friends who stepped in to take care of things in my absence. It took place while I was in Chicago's O'Hare airport waiting to board a small domestic flight north. Three Cane Whale from Bristol, a wondrous trio involving Alex, the mandolin player from Spiro. They'd been booked up for the Broadstairs Folk Festival, had a night off, and had contacted me about playing in the woods, to my amazement and delight. From what I've heard it was a great night, the band loved the space and ended up sitting round the fire afterwards with the late crew. Hopefully I'll see them there one day, and who knows, perhaps even Spiro.

There was one more gig planned — Arlet (Sunday 27th). I coordinated the invitate list, etc. from across the Atlantic, managed to get together a good-sized audience of receptive listeners for them. As with Three Cane Whale, Adam compered, he and Kim cooked a curry, various other people brought stuff or helped out in some way, and everything got done.

I don't think Aidan (Arlet's accordionist and primary composer) would mind this in the public domain — I'm sitting here in Wisconsin processing several recent deaths and some kind words go a long way:

"...I wanted to say a big thank you for your efforts in making the Arlet gig happen last Sunday. Without exaggerating I can say that it was probably about the best gig we've done. Somehow everything just slotted into place...

Your absence was obviously sorely missed, but we were chatting afterwards and Rosie said that she thought we were playing in a way which you had probably imagined we could in the early days. So perhaps we're getting closer to reaching that potential, but I think all of us in Arlet take a lot from knowing that you believed in what we do even when we weren't managing to quite do it.

So thank you for that, and the occasional reminder to keep doing it! We will, and we're even starting to take some pride in it as well."