Candlemas at The Riverside Folk Club, Loughor

by Gareth Cornfield

Monday, 3rd February was the Candlemas night at The Riverside Folk Club. The club now has fortnightly unplugged sessions that are proving to be very popular and last night was one.

Candlemas is an old celebration where candles would be taken to church to be blessed. It is also midway between the Winter Solstice, shortest day, and the Vernal Equinox, Spring. Many folk superstition surround this day, including ones regarding weather. Generally, they say that if Candlemas day has good weather, then Winter will return, if it is bad, then good weather is on the way. Given the wind & rain we had on Monday, it looks like we are in for some better weather from now on. Well we can only hope!

The day is also dedicated to Cerridwen in the non-Christian calendar. She was the mother of Taliesin, the legendary bard.

Appropriate therefore to have a celebration in the folk club.

And what a celebration it was!

I was the MC & started the night off with a poetry reading about the day & the rituals associated with it. The music was kicked off by club stalwarts, The Choirboys. They have the often onerous task of being the first ac t on every week and shoulder this responsibility with good grace.

The Choirboys- Photo by Andy Boyt

The Ystradgynlais made what will be her last appearance of the season. The group sang traditional carols and New Year songs, with lots of audience participation. The Mari herself was up to all sorts of mischief, getting close to the ladies and generally bringing mayhem & fun.

The Ystradgynlais Mari Lwyd, at the Riverside Folk Club, seen here with the Constable, who tries to keep order! (photo by Andy Boyt)

Another regular at the club is local singer-songwriter, Tom Fritton. He performed beautiful songs, just him and his Irish Bouzouki. Tom can often be seen at the Valley Folk Club. We hope he will be a more regular visitor to The Riverside.

Tom Fritton. Photo from his facebook page.

The Men of Sweyn’s Ey Morris side were there, performing a Rapper dance. This has nothing to do with Hip-Hop, it is a traditional dance, performed with a ‘rapper’. This is a flexible length of metal with a handle at either end. It was purportedly used to scrape the sweat & dirt off the backs of pit ponies. The intricate dance, with complex figures sacred & delighted the audience in equal measure.

It was suggested that the way the dance is done could account for the hair loss of some of the dancers! They then, after a short break to get their breath back, did some Morris Dances, using rather large sticks. Thankfully none of them broke & no damage was done.

photo courtesy of The Men of Sweyn’s Ey)

Rounding off the night was The Empty Shed Experience. They are always welcome at the club. They are constantly developing and writing new songs. They were road testing a couple before their prestigious support gig at The Garage, Uplands, Swansea on 12th February. They will be opening up for Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick. A well deserved accolade for such a classy, Carmarthenshire based, act.

They wowed the audience with their own compositions. Songs of such deep meaning and heart rending beauty. They also acceded to a request for a song that they don’t do very often now. It was their cover of the Tina Turner song, River Deep, Mountain High. Their arrangement of this song takes it from a Rock’n’Roll standard to a story of love that tugs at the heart strings. Brilliant!

Yet another fantastic night at The Riverside Folk Club, held every Monday night from 8.30 at The Boating Club, Loughor. Come along and hear some fantastic music. Free entry, just but a raffle ticket for £1.

The Empty Shed Experience (photo courtesy of their Facebook page)