Resurrection of Folk Club Bonn outdoors on Friday 02.07.21 A Resounding Success!

Dear Folk Clubbers,

as those of you who were there on Friday evening 02.07.21 at 19:30 hrs and the many who were not only just there but also contributed and performed, will already well know, FCB # 116 was a resounding success, and a very safe evening indeed. This was not previously carved out in stone. The most important thing in organising an outdoor event is always the weather. It was situated outdoors, and on the secondary hockey pitch, it was well mown, but it was a field, and a field remains a field. We were, in fact, exceptionally well blessed with the weather and it was wonderful and even better than what I had ordered...... ......After a nine-month break, which is sufficient time for a child to be conceived and born, (and this happy and joyous event has indeed happened to two well-known folk Club performers, Simon Kempston & Simon Wahl!) it was almost like a re-birth and an uplifting moment for all participants. "Free at last!" could well have been the motto for the evening, which we did not have. Detlef had a lot to deal with initially behind the scenes arranging the list of those who had taken the courtesy of pre-registering, but it would seem that many people who attend the folk club are not always the best of readers. (They are certainly good listeners though!) When we arrived on Friday early in the evening we found that not only did Roland had no staff to man the drinks cart for the folk club, but also did not really know where the plastic benches with backrests had gone walkabouts to. I remember from last year in September & October these green plastic benches which actually looked very much like the much more substantial and heavier cast iron and wooden ones which are physically screwed and bolted into the ground, but were so very much lighter had probably long since been either stolen or misappropriated? One person could carry one easily, and had no doubt done so, on several occasions. After scouring the grounds in vain for what seemed like an eternity, whilst Mario and John Hay were busy setting up the amplification, about 40 wooden beer garden benches without backrests were finally found neatly folded in the container, not even two meters away from the stage, behind it. After erecting them on the field, spacing and distancing them and applying numbers to all of them, we were up and running again. The night was still very young for Detlef though as he overtook the barman's duty for the evening and looked after the till and even managed to shoot a few photos "zwischendurch" due to the absence of John Hurd who was on the day second vaccination inhibited and Sabine Büttner who was present but inhibited by having a foot-long bandage on her shutter finger. Detlef even got some gymnastics in, first fetching a full replacement barrel from the bar and then a crate of bottled beer after the second barrel was also emptied! The introduction of the new minimum consumption Deckel at €7,50 for three drinks and/or food, played right into Detlef's hands and greatly simplified his job. It seemed to be accepted universally by all the guests whenever I was briefly helping out on the bar. The discarded beer mats collected in a cardboard box provided a useful check on the bar sales, along with the few returned original unused stamped beer mats. You played a blinder Detlef! Well done! A great thanks to Mario and John Hay for providing the sound equipment which we had used in September and October last year. For what is normally a purely acoustic non-amplified live music event, this was a skill set that we shouldn't really have, so thanks again for that lads! It has long been a motto od the folk club in Bonn that we vehemently cherish tradition, but we also actively encourage innovation and versatility, not only in the music, but also in the presentation thereof, especially when sorely necessary as in this particular case. I have been to folk clubs in England where one would have been glad to consider a retired SRN (State Registered Nurse) or an unemployed ambulance driver as the zenith of the medical assistance on offer for the evening, and more likely than not, it would have been only a half empty (half full from John Hurd’s point of view) box of elastoplasts, well past its expiry date. We had last Friday evening not one but two competent physicians in attendance. Regine manning the gate like a mother hawk in full "Ils ne passeront pas" mode, and quite rightly so, and Eva Henneken administering Covid tests both before, and in between, playing for the longest duration of anybody during the whole evening. It was a difficult event to organise, but as always we always try to be over-cautious rather than under-cautious and actually err on the side of caution rather than the opposite. The COVID-19 test centre in situ at the BTHV had closed it doors and shut down the very day before on the 01.07.21 so some guests could have been hoping to obtain a test there, Furthermore, both doctors were aware of the pandemic tiredness which is setting in after such a long shutdown period, but even so, I was somewhat astonished that over 20 tests had to be administered with a total audience of 59 people. It just goes to show how potentially dangerous everything is now that the Delta variant has really got its marching boots on and is so much more contagious than the original Covid-19 virus. So please do, always remain vigilant and stay safe. As I mentioned early on in the evening, these new COVID-19 variants are very contagious indeed, but luckily, as the very successful and very safe event on Friday 02.07.21 shows, human „HOPE“ can still be even stronger and even more contagious than anything else that even COVID-19 can throw at us.. ...... There are a couple of photos in this article for you to gauge the atmosphere and also here is the set list, which never ceases to amaze me in its breadth, depth and diversity. So a big hand and thank you to all the musicians who performed on the evening. 

  Harrison & Henneken Swift poem (John Harrison) Swift song (John Harrison & Eva Henneken) Black is the Colour (trad. Arr. Hamish Imlach) The Green Man (Martin Donnelly) 

  ELPI (Lothar Prünte) Everybody wants to rule the world (Tears For Fears) Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty) This Flight Tonight (Nazareth) 

  Gerd Schinkel Lebenslaute Epistel für Joan Baez Für Euch (Alles NICHT GEMA gemeldet- Texte & Komponist Gerd Schinkel) 

  Mario Dompke Älter werden ) Mario Dompke no GEMA Wenn ich dann gestorben bin ) Sailing To The Far Side Of The World ( Tom McConner)

  Shay McVeigh When The Devil’s Loose (A. A. (Augusto Arthur aka Scot) Bundy) Alcohol & Pills ( Fred Eaglesmith) Poncho & Lefty (Townes Van Zandt) 

  Christoph Thiebes The Night Watchman Blues (Big Bill Broonzy) Stack-o-Lee (Mississippi John Hurt) 

  CAJU Little Stone (CAJU) Die Seele (CAJU) Round World (CAJU) Bones of Poets (CAJU)

Tri Martolod (- traditionell Betonisch) Drowsy Maggy (- traditional Irish) Habibi (- traditionell Arabisch) Hasta Siempre (- Buena Vista social club) 

  Jock Stewart I’m a man you don’t meet every day (trad. Scottish) 

 Thank you all so much for being there and all pulling on the same rope so rhythmically and so effectively in the same direction, and thanks to Jock Stewart for still being there exactly where we last left him and picking himself up, shaking himself down and closing the wonderful evening again for us.