Several members of the Nottingham Blues Society spent the weekend at The Butlins Rock and Blues Festival in Skegness. Here we share our experience of the festival and photographs and videos. If you would like to add your own review or tell us about your weekend at The Butlins Rock and Blues Festival then send it to us on an email and we'll publish it here. tony@nottinghambluessociety.com
If you took any photographs at the festival then why not enter our Photography Competition. It's open to everyone
Simon's Story - Simon Gledhill - Nottingham Blues Society Treasurer
Last Friday Marie and I set off (late as usual) to drive to Butlins at Skegness for the annual Rock and Blues Weekend. We arrived about 6pm to find it bitter cold and snow and ice underfoot. We’ve never been to Butlins before and combined with it being dark it took us a while to find where we had to check in – but by 7pm we had all our stuff in the apartment and were enjoying a hot drink. We had exchanged a number of progress calls during the afternoon with Sue and Tony and so they now knew that we had arrived and were going to get something to eat before doing anything else.
Anyway, next up was The Blues Band and they played a great set. Not surprising when you look at the members of the band and their pedigree: Paul Jones – probably most commonly known having been with Manfred Mann at one time – but that is only a fraction of his achievements in music over the years; Dave Kelly – who has played with Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and John Lee Hooker !! ‘Nuff said; Tom McGuinness who also played with Manfred Mann and then later formed McGuinness Flint with Hughie Flint with Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle; Rob Townsend of Family and Medicine Head, he’s also played with Peter Skellern and Gary Fletcher who has done more in rock and blues music than I could ever fit into this blog entry.
On Saturday afternoon, Marie and I reconvened in the Centre Stage with Sue, Tony, Barry and Caroline and saw Gary Fletcher’s acoustic solo set which I enjoyed a lot and Gary said he was more than happy for us to record and video his performance and so I did record one song and put it up on Youtube. Next up was Maggie Bell and Dave Kelly, another acoustic set and it was excellent – Maggie Bell’s vocals are as strong as they ever were, amazing to think that she has been an active performer since the late 60s.
We arrived at the Centre Stage about 8:30pm or so and it was packed. Being new to festivals like this I hadn’t known what to expect – there must have been at least 2500 people in there. A quick text message to Tony resulted in them finding us and explaining that they had saved seats for us near the front – very kind of them indeed. So we got settled in and enjoyed the last couple of songs by the Ben Waters Band and man can he play piano, he was excellent and to look at reminded me a bit of Peter Kay.
In between bands, the DJ Emma B, played a mixture of classic rock and blues tracks which was just fine, however she did seem hell bent on playing louder than the bands had been playing which was not conducive to any conversation in between bands. It would have been nice to chat with our friends about what we had thought of the previous act and so on, instead you could only speak to the person either side of you and then most often only by shouting down their ear.
The afternoon session closed with a set by Animals and Friends, featuring Animals “originals” John Steel and Micky Gallagher, plus John E. Williamson and Peter Barton – they did not disappoint playing a rousing set with great musicianship finishing off, of course, with House of the RIsing Sun.
Saturday evening, Marie was a bit rocked and bluesed out and decided on an evening with her book and the TV on the sofa. I went to meet up with Sue and Tony to see the Jay Tamkin Band. I cannot dispute that Jay Tamkin is a very, very talented young musician and together with his bass player and drummer create a powerful sound. However, it did seem that it was too much talent over content to me, too much going on for me to enjoy the songs.
The evening was about to get better though. At 9:20pm Chantel McGregor came on stage and I was simply amazed. This young woman from West Yorkshire – Bradford to be precise – just blew me away. She played her own material as well as classic songs by Hendrix, Robin Trower, Jethro Tull, Stevie Ray Vaughan with amazing skill – delicate when required and then the next moment as heavy and as hard as you like. Chantel has been in higher education for the last few years and has achieved outstanding academic results in her music studies. If this young woman is not a world wide star within the next 5 years (at most) then there really is no justice in this world.
So, yes without a doubt, Chantel’s set was the highlight of the weekend for me and I look forward to seeing her again soon. And to her bringing a CD out.
We didn’t stay for Sunday’s performances, I was feeling a bit tired (given my recent illness) so we got home late afternoon yesterday. Regardless, this weekend was great fun, great music that I got to enjoy with Marie, Sue, Tony, Caroline and Barry. I’ll definitely be going again next year. This year there was a choice of 37 different artists / bands to choose from – excellent value for money in my view.
And finally, the non-live highlight of the weekend for me was hearing the DJ play a track from The Idle Hands most recent album “All Night Sinnin’” – and I make no apologies for continuing to plug this band at every opportunity I get. The opportunity to review their album and to interview their lead singer Phil was instrumental in bringing me back into the live music scene. Thanks also to Neil Fishwick of Stillgigging.com for giving me the chance to write some articles for his website. And thanks to Sue and Tony for urging me to get involved with the Nottingham Blues Society. Thanks also to Barry for allowing this complete unknown to walk onto the committee and take on the role of Treasurer!
Rock and Blues – Keep it Live !!
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