Bampton Folk Festival 'After the Fair' with lots of old faces and some welcome new ones

Well that's Bampton Folk Festival over for another year and I had a fantastic time playing mostly English traditional tunes for hours on end at the White Horse and Quarryman's Rest pubs. A big thanks to Clare Penney and all the other organisers on the festival committee for all their hard work.

It was great to see all the old faces but there were some new ones too, which is just as important. I was very pleased to get the opportunity of meeting Adrian who is a professional musician and puppeteer from Oxfordshire. He also has a blog about his music travels which is worth a visit.

A particularly nice feature of the Bampton Folk Festival is that there are visitors from so far afield including some great players from the Isle of Wight, Ireland and Brittany. The Bretons played on their bombardes with verve and energy and, as always, were very popular. Jason Rice showed enormous skill demonstrating step dancing on a table held firmly in place be several volunteers.

After a few weeks when I've hardly played my instruments, Bampton Folk Music Festival was a wonderful opportunity and I look forward to being back there again next year.

Were you there? What did you think? Comments welcomed below.

Bye for now

Rob

Rob Hopcott - online author and folk musician