Fleetwood and Further

    
      The traditional English act from Canada finishes their performance.  They have made a few mistakes, mostly forgetting lyrics in their set, and the audience is polite, but reserved in their applause.  The Americans take the stage.  They are the only Americans in a field of performers that contains several high profile Canadians.  The Americans strap on their guitars, and look over the audience.  They are both thinking that they didn't come over the ocean just to lose an audience.  They are both there to kill.  The hostess asks for a few pointers for her introduction.  He tells her they are Americana.  She finishes her introduction, and the two turn to face their audience. 
     Fleetwood is a former fishing center, and as such a center of support for fishing songs.  He turns to her with a count, and he is pounding on his guitar, she playing a rhythmically infectious bassline.  You can see the heads start to bounce up and down, and the toes start to tap as he launches into his first line; "Hear the rumble of the diesel, see the hands on deck, keep the boat in the channel, keep your desires in check, We're comin' in, Oh YEAH we're comin' in!".  By the second verse they're all with them and the song ends in a thunder of applause.  They're not taking any prisoners though and with a count of four, he holds his guitar in the air with one hand while he strikes it with the other hand.  She's looking at him, and pounding on her bass guitar, turns to the audience and begins to sing.  By the time the first chorus ends the accordionist from the first band is in tears.  He holds his guitar in the air again, and she's into the second verse.  Now he's singing his harmony with her with an intensity that infects the audience.  The song ends with the guitar in the air again, and both of them pounding out the last few chords.  Now the arms unfold, the applause is positively explosive ready to be "Angels of the Road", and the audience is in their corner for the rest of their set.  They are trying to get off of the stage at the end of the set, but people are approaching them to talk, and buy CDs.  They want to get off the stage so the next act can get set up.  On the way out the door people are stopping them to talk, tell them how much they enjoyed the experience.  No mistakes, no prisoners.  Steve and Kristi killed.

Kristi Ice Cream

     We finished at Fylde Folk Festival with a rousing set that went down very well.  Our host, and hostess were very kind, and gave us a lot of kudos for our approach to performance, which was great as they were an extremely professional duo themselves.   I only hope that we can continue to put in such dynamic performances, and have such a great response, but this was the largest audience we can hope to have this tour, and we have made new friends, and new fans. 

Illumination

     We took the rest of the day off with a walk into Blackpoole for dinner, and the bus back to the hotel afterwards.  I've never seen so many hotels in one place in all my life.  The Queen's Promenade is lined with them almost exclusively for several miles.  At night you have "the illuminations".   These are light displays with images.  They are mostly pretty tasteless in our opinion.  I suppose they are good for families with children.  After dark the street in front of our hotel is lined with automobiles queuing up for a look at them.  We spent the rest of our evening in our room watching movies, and drinking Bell's whiskey, our first alcohol of the journey.

     The next day we are obsessed with getting out of the hotel, and off to our next destination, Croxdale, County Durham.  We are staying with Fred Brierley.  Fred was the first person to bring us to County Durham.  At that time Fred owned a pub in Haswell.  He was putting on a folk festival, and brought an unknown American act, Steve and Kristi Nebel to play in his pub.  Ever since then we always stay with Fred if we can.  He always has an extra bed for an itinerant folk musician.  By the time we got to Croxdale, both of us were dead tired.  Fred volunteers at the local mining museum, which he helped found.  He is that kind of guy.  We had spoken with Fred's significant other Sheila on the phone on the way in, and she had clued us to the fact that Fred would be at the museum so we went directly to there.  We did a tour of the museum, asked a lot of questions, and even got a tour of the miner's banners in the council chambers from one of the members of the local city council.  Then Fred gave us "our" key to his house, and off we went to Croxdale.  We brought our "stuff" in the house, and layed down for an instant nap.   Here's a picture of "Fred's House".

     When we got back from the store to get dinner Fred was going out the door.  He asked us if we were going to Aycliffe FC tonight?  After he asked, we were.  We finished dinner, and saved the dirty dishes for later, out the door, and down the road.  It was the Foresters FC last time we were here, and in Darlington instead of in Aycliffe.  We arrive in the middle of the sing-a-round.  When the artist who is singing finishes, we are motioned from across the room to come over to the other side of the room, and we go around in back through another door to get there.  After the first half of the sing-a-round ends we are assigned to sing three songs.  We are playing at Aycliffe next week, and the organizer wants them to get a good taste of us.  Kristi wins the raffle at the end of the night for a bottle of red wine.  She only drinks white wine, so I guess I'll have to help her out with that.
     It is good to be at Fred's.  He is a good conversationalist, and he has an excellent store of Scotch whiskey always.  Tonight it is Aberlour, and Kristi and I decide we'll only have one.  Fred always has great cheese, and crackers as well.  We talk about unloading a shipment of asphalt in freezing weather.  Then it is on to discussing the attributes of various kinds of cargo ships.  Kristi is drawing on her knowledge of ships from her days as a marine draftsperson.  Then I get into politics and rant for awhile.  Fred is a very liberal, and generally agreeable guy.  We laugh about my passion for politics, and a little comparison of politics here in the UK as opposed to the US.

The way to the Croxdale Folk Club

     Tonight we play at Croxdale Folk Club.  We have been here many times.  Our good friends Jimmy and Val,  "Jiva" will be there with our new CDs that they have made for us.  It can't be a bad night, and then tomorrow it's off to Scotland.  I'm hoping for a dropin to Holy Island sometime in the next week.  It has a strong relationship with Durham City that perhaps I'll detail in a later blog.  For now, this is our truth from the road.  Steve Nebel 9-06-011

From Kristi:
     It takes me about a week to begin to miss home desperately and wish you would make a comment or two about our blogs I'm talking about missing YOU.  Other stuff too, though.  I miss the raging and tumbling wild waters of the Pacific Northwest and the huge evergreens.  I miss the (please excuse my banality) wide open spaces with seemingly bigger and wilder everything; rivers, mountains and weather, deadly though it may sometimes be. 
     Then I get home and I almost immediately miss this place.  Tamed and calm though they may be, the waters flowing here are invariably dotted with scenic ancient stone arched bridges.  The walls in houses here are a foot or so thick, meaning they'll last at least another hundred or so years unless deliberately demolished.  The buildings in every direction put our flimsy hollow wood walls to shame, with the fine craftsmanship of masonry seldom seen in Tacoma.  And history here has an entirely different meaning next to that of Tacoma, with anything younger than a hundred years old looking modern to the locals.  The new castle of nearby Newcastle replaced the old one two thousand years ago, for example.