Bluegrass

From Whiteadder to Bluegrass. Saturday saw Dunbar host its annual music festival. Basically all the pubs host a folk (traditional) music band and everyone has drink or two to make it sound ok. Actually the days celebrations started in the afternoon when somehow we managed to deliberately lose all our children to other people and free us up to swan around Dunbar. First stop the pub, with spectacular views of Fife on offer, we couldn't refuse it. However as we had planned to see some musicians and we were in the only pub that seemed to be without any, we headed up the High Street to hear the groans of the pipe band. They were very good, but I discovered from Eddie their main piper who had enjoyed the free bar at the pub, that they needed a drummer. He worked hard on getting Emma interested but failed. Then we went on to the Parish Hall where some Grammar School kids were doing propper swing your pants folk music. most interesting was that their lead singer was this petite girl who had the voice of a big bear. It was really deep and quite powerful.

Roll on the evening, we had made the foolish decision to meet the two Ian's from the running club. They do like a tipple or two and as I was booked to preach the next day and run at 7.30 am with Pete I was trying to go at a steady pace. I was optimistic as we hit the Volunteer Arms for our fisrt band, playing open air it was the Creelmen. Fairly ok Scottish folk stuff. Then it was off to The Eagle. The Eagle is something of a legend and so is any English man who survives a night there. Anyway the band was uninspiring, but we had seats so stayed there for too long. Last stop the Hillside where it livened up with my first experience of Bluegrass. it's music, not something you smoke. A bit sort of hillbilly ish, but good. We were amused by the little woman playing the oversized upright bass. We feel she may have an inferiority complex as a result of her chosen weapon of music. Emma's old boyfriend was there and is the new owner so that was a bit awkward, but hey, the beer kept coming and we were all happy. Around 1am I made the decision to go home and was not looking forward at all t my 7.30 run. At home the day was saved as pete had also had too much pop and decided to call it off via a note in my door. A good night it was.