Well, the first Friday of May was at 29 o C certainly beer garden weather and there were a few souls out on the balcony at Dottys enjoying the view and the weather, and it was Rhine Aflame (Rhein in Flammen) on this same weekend, AND with the Thursday ( May 1st) being a bank holiday many Bonners had taken the Friday (May 2nd) off to give them a four day break holiday away by merely sacrificing one day's holiday from work. Many people brazenly insert the May 2nd date into the work's holiday roster on the very first working day of the year, on January 1st, even before wishing colleagues a "Happy New Year". You Bogarters probably know who you are and I reckon there were few, if any, of you in attendance at FCB # 157, those 60 plus people who were there had come to listen to their monthly dose of live acoustic music, and did not leave empty-handed.
At first sight, upon entering, Dotty's seemed to resemble an art gallery or a vernissage, rather than a "normal" folk club, so no surprise there as Folk Club Bonn often has a surprise or two up its sleeve:
The featured artist of the evening is not only a talented Irish guitarist and singer and harmonica player, but he's also a dab hand with a paint brush too, and the merchandise table was clad in unusual but most pleasing objets d'art on the evening. Apparently, Pablo Picasso stole a few of Shay's early brush strokes in his early career and Shay McVeigh has still not seen any of the royalties still owing to him. It seems that not just the music industry is plagued with plagiarism and the misappropriation of one's intellectual property.
There were no actual 'obby 'orses present on the evening but we did all regaly sing in the first of May and the first summer's day. After Holger had warmed up the ivories Hans Ihnen took over the black and whites and transposed us from Birmingham's Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osborne's "Dreamer" way eastwards to East Germany and Dresden's Karat's "Über Sieben Brücken" / "Over Seven Bridges" a song which Peter Maffay later made famous:
whilst becoming entrapped betwixt the photogenic cross-hairs of Detlef and Sabine..
Wolfgang Schriefer profiting from the excellent railway connections between Cologne and the Bonn folk club (at least before two weeks of not such good connections) and reconstructed a song which last month was presented as a mere poem. Wolfgang wouldn't have been a Wolfs Gang without being able to incorporate elements of the Moody Blues and Black Fööss and Deep Purple into his song. As a visitor to English folk clubs in my youth I am continually astonished at the variety that the Bonn folk club brings out into the open of this small confined space without amplifiers: Chapeau performers!
"Featured Artist" both as musician and also as the artist who provided the artwork in the back drop of the evening Shay McVeigh took us on a wonderful journey through north America with the works of Mick Flannery, Ezio, Tom Waits and Citizen Cope. Shay's repertoire is second to none with a discerning ear and an appetite for a good musical story.
After the break Andreas Kulik transported us in the direction of Poland
with two songs by Store Dobre Malzenstwo:
We do ask performers to preferably indicate beforehand which songs they intend to play on the evening, in order to ease the job of our scribes, and also to possibly prevent duplifications of the same song deing played twice, which is, upon reflection, not always a bad thing.
Andreas managed to bring an old Jazz standard, "Autumn Leaves" before ending his set with his own first song in the German language, "Menschenheitsfamilie."
Steffi Sawatzki and her crew, Iris Brück and Cartsten Exner on guitar had come along to a previous FCB event to "case the joint" and correctly decided that they were more than eligible to perform, which they did excellently with "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" from Bert Bacharach and "Autumn Leaves" , which they of course had bogarted first. I was rather surprised at the joint tendency towards the falling leaves of autumn, when a few hours before we had in celebration, collectively sung the very joys of the first days of May and the beginning of summer, with spring only so very recently sprung and the bare trees finally, after the barren winter months, being once again clad in green? Apparently, this is just the product of having "imagination" and "Vorstellungsvermögen" as the theme for the evening performers follow their trains of thought unto its logical conclusion!
So our own faults really!;-)
Putting on a first Friday folk club evening is not often as simple a task as it might initially appear on the evening, and sometimes a whole evening does not run exactly to plan. Elena does a wonderful job, but often a Wednesday evening can look very much different to how a Friday evening sometimes eventually turns out. A floor spot at FCB is traditionally 2-3 songs which gives the often unfortunate MC on the evening a modicum of flexibility if the unforseen should in fact happen. Detlef, God bless him, likes to see the FCB "put to bed" at 22:00 hrs before Jock Stewart calls and we have been very punctual indeed of late. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to shorten sets in order to meet deadlines. We never plan to do this in advance, but if it ever happen, we try to be fair and reimburse performers with extra songs for any which they have relinquished in the past. This evening was such a case for Peter Bachman who had relinquished a song at a previous folk club and so we paid him back"double"
Peter rewarded us with Willy Astor's "Einfach Sein" and a version of "A Friend For Life
in the Cologne dialect, which were a joy to behold.
Shay took us home on another wonderful musical journey through the north American continent:
after selecting the correct harp Shay
led us through the erstwhile songs of Hoyt Axton, Damien Rice, Jacob Aaron Smith
and Fred Eaglesmith,
Before he finally, not quite, bit the "Dust" with a final song by the Dead Tongues!
Thanks for such a wonderful performance Shay and until next time.
(If anyone is still looking to make early use of the mere seven months' available shopping months before Christmas and would like to set up their loved ones with some of Shay's exquisite artwork, please get in touch and we will help to facilitate it for you.)
So as a finale there was the second Stewart song of the evening, this time about Jock as usual!
Goodnight all and see you again in June!
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