Folk Festival Diary – Day 2 Friday

Mark Lear
Mar 22
9 min read

Updated: Jun 24

My Schedule for Friday 21st March 2025

The Copper Bar - Filkin’s Drift
The Copper Bar - Lucy Grubb
The Copper Bar - Ed Blunt
The Copper Bar - Anna McLuckie Trio
New Century Hall - Culverake
New Century Hall - The Longest Johns

Northern Quarter, Manchester - Day 2 of the Manchester Folk Festival was a day of contrasts. The Copper Bar at Band on the Wall was my first port of call for a series of concerts by four relatively new and up-and-coming artists that are all being mentored by Sound Roots, the overall presenters / organisers of the entire festival. We started with…

Filkins Drift - Seth Bye and Chris Roberts have earned widespread acclaim with extensive national airtime on BBC Radio 2, 3, 4, 6 Music, and BBC World Service. Renowned for their live performances, characterised as ‘utterly mesmerizing’ and ‘hugely entertaining’, the duo have enchanted audiences across the UK including Folk East, Warwick Folk Festival, St George’s Bristol, and the Llangollen International Eisteddfod.

The music of Filkin’s Drift captures the essence of their 870-mile walk, ‘weaving together a tapestry of shared experiences’ in the form of Songlines. Their compositions are sophisticated yet rooted in tradition. From delicate Welsh folksongs to traditional English dance tunes, the pair blend fiddle and guitar with their gorgeous close vocal harmonies.

In tandem with their groundbreaking commitment to sustainable touring, the duo’s latest endeavour involves the formation of Filkin’s Ensemble, a 15-piece orchestral-folk band, but today, we have to make do with just the two of them.

Lucy Grubb - Lucy is a singer and songwriter from Norwich weaving her own way onto the British Folk and Americana scene. She’s performed at festivals such as Glastonbury, Latitude, Moseley Folk and Cambridge Folk Festivals, and in 2021 released her third EP ‘Waste My Time’ which earned her a first spin on BBC Radio 6 Music. This year she'll also be performing at FOCUS Wales and Folk East and in Spring 2026 will be releasing her debut album ‘Worrying For Nothin’.

Lucy opens with ‘Waste My Time’ and then ‘Magpie’ which is a love song to Norwich, which she missed more than she thought she would when she moved to London for a while, and it’s also dedicated to her mum, who I guess she also missed, but we’re not told as much.

‘Anything I Ask’ is a love song to her boyfriend who she’s been with since she was seventeen, and as it’s been ten years now she thought he deserved it. ‘Worrying For Nothin' follows, which will be the title track to her album when it's released in a year or so’s time, or as Lucy puts it “when she’s got the money together”.

‘You Don't Do Anything’ …for me, is a song that does exactly what it says on the tin and spells everything out as to where you’ve been going wrong - whoever you are. Lucy throws in a healthy dose of country blended nicely to the elements of folk, to soften the lyrical bodyblow – but the message still packs a punch. She seemed such a nice girl too.

Ed Blunt - …is third up and takes up the mantle from Lucy. Hailed by Rolling Stone for his ‘astonishing mastery of his craft’, Ed Blunt is a multi-instrumentalist and storyteller whose songs will make you laugh and gently break your heart all at the same time. Featured on BBC Radio and playlisted in all 620 Caffè Nero branches - there's exposure for you - Ed’s songs weave folk, jazz and roots with a dry Randy Newman-esque humour.

Ed grew up in the Surrey Hills surrounded by the sounds of Paul Simon and James Taylor. His talent for playing by ear led him to study jazz piano at the Guildhall School, but on graduation he was left with crippling stage fright. Stumbling on an online songwriting camp during the Covid lockdown proved to be a turning point. Mentor Chris Difford (of Squeeze fame - what a band they were !) discovered his talent for the first time, calling him a “quiet genius.” Since then, Ed has released two acclaimed albums under his own name, ‘Over The Moon’ (2022) and ‘Grown Up’ (2024) and has collaborated with artists including Tom Odell, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Jamie Lawson.

Blunt opens up with a song about a bluebell wood in deepest, darkest Dorking, which he sort of hails from, but then leads us into stories about going to Catana in Sicily to meet his girlfriend’s family for the first time - and all the fear that goes with it ! We’ll say nothing as to the kind of people that also live in Sicily, then !

It takes a short while to ‘get’ Blunt as he’s quite deadpan in his delivery of patter in between the songs - not in an offensive way, it’s quite endearing really, but only when you’ve ‘got it’ – which in my case took far longer than it should. I could blame it on all the chasing around Manchester I’m having to do, but as I’ve only just started today, I’m fairly sure that I won’t get away with it !

(The) Anna McLuckie Trio - …has us heading for the home straight. Anna is a Scottish singer, songwriter and Clàrsach player - clàrsach being the Scottish Gaelic word for a small harp. I had to look it up, I confess !

Raised on classical and traditional music, Anna’s writing draws on her musical beginnings and also takes influence from her love of popular music and more experimental sounds. Her music sits in a world of contemporary folklore; her songs layered with interweaving harmonies, story led lyricism and free form structures. Based in London, she has performed in places around the world from Rockwood Music Hall NYC to a concert series in Russia, to house shows and folk sessions. She’s appeared at festivals across the UK and supported the likes of Jake Xerxes, Fussell, Rozi Plain and Richard Hawley.

This gig was one of the most subtle affairs I’ve ever been to. Delicate in every way and a nightmare for a photographer whose camera shutter can sound like a machine gun on rapid fire mode, at the most inopportune moments – and electronic (silent) shutters don’t work with LED lighting, so you can imagine how popular I was, at times.

Anyway, I digress. McLuckie is as subtle as her clàrsach with a soft, Irish lilt that can relax you in a moments notice especially when she waxes lyrical about the time she moved to London (she apologises as if it’s a deeply offensive thing to do - many would agree) and through all the gloom, in her house, she has a window, where she sits and where a little bird comes to visit, which she befriends and writes him a song. This is truly delightful.

Now, after being spoiled by having four acts all at the same venue and one after the other, it’s time for me to hot-foot it across to the venue that last night, turfed me out of the photographers pit after only a few minutes, for arriving too late – it’s fair enough mind, ‘first three songs and out’ are the rules, and I couldn’t get there any faster because John Boden and the Remnant Kings were so good and Band on the Wall so packed with people that I couldn’t get out of the place. I promised myself that I would not make the same mistake twice and so I was off, like the wind, to The New Century Hall and their multiple layers of security, just to get in the place.

Culverake - are a new traditional singing trio promising gusto and harmonies a plenty. Made up of Seb Stone, Matt Quinn and Lizzy Hardingham, they breathe new life into timeless melodies – or so the preamble and festival brochure says anyway.

The stage is full of gear, but none of it is for our three as the next 45 minutes is all about vocals and harmonies – not a single instrument is required thank you. That is, unless you include the audience who at certain parts of the show, begin to punch out the beat with their feet on the floor, in unison, and with such a thud that it fair makes the floor shudder.

I might remind you that this is my first foray into the world of folk and whilst this may be a common occurrence to those that have been initiated, it certainly wasn’t to me, and I stood in awe and amazement at what I was witnessing. Little did I know what was around the corner, when the ‘headliners’ took to the stage however, but as an introduction, it served me well.

The band has a varied repertoire of traditional English and Irish songs, all with a story intricately woven through the harmonies. It would be interesting to see the three with instruments as the boys cover all the bases between them, Stone with his whistle and uilleann pipe, and Quinn with mandolin, duet concertina and melodeon. With Hardingham’s vocals that have been described as exhilarating and which you could listen to on loop, it would create a whole new dimension to relish and enjoy.

Next week sees the band start to record their very first album, having reached their Kickstarter target so successfully that they’ve now introduced a stretch target so they can produce copies in vinyl – oh, how I yearn for my Pioneer turntable !

This kind of folk music is what I expected when I agreed to cover the gigs, but next up was a band that would raise things to another level, first however, there’s around twenty minutes before they hit the stage which is about enough time to grab a pint before heading back into the pit.

The Longest Johns – There are some bands that need no introduction as they say, and in the world of folk, these are one of them - but they're going to get one anyway. The Longest Johns are an English folk musical group from Bristol, consisting of Andy Yates, Jonathan "JD" Darley, and Robbie Sattin, who’ve flown the flag for sea shanties for well over a decade now.

Their popularity went skywards back in 2021 when they went viral on TikTok with their rendition of The Wellerman - one of those songs that stays in your head for days once it’s entered, rent free, all expenses paid, and for as long as it wants. Since then, they’ve sailed the seven seas, all in the name of the 'rock ‘n’ roll of 1752', gracing stages worldwide performing folk music in the English tradition, as well as composing and recording their own music.

They have their own unique talent for putting their own spin on many of folk's classic songs while adding their own individual style of songwriting to keep the tradition alive for a long time to come, they’ve racked up more than half a million streams across all the socials and are now firmly established in the higher echelons of folk music. Tonight, having headed north from their Avon base, as they’re one of the big headliners of the 2025 Festival.

They begin with the ‘Leaving of Liverpool’ or ‘Fare Thee Well, My Own True Love’ if you prefer, but with a rousing version of it, just in case you hadn’t noticed that they’d entered the fray. Alcohol plays a decent part in the proceedings with ‘Whisky is the Life of Man’ and the even more rousing ‘Beer is Great’ which gets the feet tapping on the floor in solidarity with the beat and glasses raised in the air, in salutation of the statement.

It’s a full on setlist, with plenty of patter and banter in between. You easily get the impression that most of the crowd have been and done this before - unlike me, who’s experiencing this sort of thing for the very first time. Usually, I shoot rock and blues gigs, and I have to admit that I never expected a folk gig to be along the same lines. A totally different kind of music maybe, but just as involved, loud and as boisterous as any of those kind of gigs. Eye opening is an understatement, if ever there was one.

The amount of humour that flows through the songs doesn’t go unnoticed either with ‘Moby Duck’ and ‘John the Red Nose’ causing much mirth and merriment. Alcohol induced it all may be, but it’s all good natured and the feel-good factor is wonderful to experience. I'm getting smitten by the folk vibes.

The foot stomping is raised to another level when, what is now their signature tune - or one of them anyway - starts, and the cheer when the opening line of ‘Wellerman’ starts tells you where this is going to go. The chorus is sung by everyone in the room, regardless of whether they know the words or not and the stomping tests the fabric of the building to its limits.

More alcohol is imbibed with the ‘Padstow Drinking Song’, and ‘Drunken Sailor’ as we head for home shores, finishing up with ‘Mutiny’ and ‘Leave Her Johnny D’ finishing off an absolutely brilliant night out.

I’ve said it before, and will probably say it a few more times yet, but I had no idea what to expect when I agreed to photograph this series of gigs, but I’m glad I did. A whole new genre of music (for me) to experience and enjoy and one that I look forward to being part of for a long time to come.

Happy days.

The Longest Johns Setlist