Leigh Folk Festival Is Upon Us

June 20, 2016 by Ray Morgan

Leigh Folk Festival is upon us

It's SUCH an important week guys! Thursday is a Big Deal. Firstly, we're voting (and please do vote - I'm not going to say how I am going to vote but please use your voice; we're lucky to have one, especially us women).

ANYWAY. Thursday is also a Big Deal because it's the blimmin' START OF LEIGH FOLK FESTIVAL!

This is hands down my favourite weekend of the Leigh-on-Sea year. I would like to encourage you all to get your suncream AND wellies ready, just in case. If the past week's weather is anything to go by, it's going to be a little "changeable" - I love our polite term for crazy weather.

From Thursday night at Squeeze - featuring live music and DJs playing 78s at the 'Junkshop Jukebox' to Poetry by Candlelight at St Clement's Church, it's the perfect kick-off to our brilliant free festival that is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

On Friday there is a ticketed concert at the Fishermen's Chapel, soon becoming one of our most exciting venues in the town for live music and cool stuff (*plug* along with the pop-up cafe each Wednesday from Beep Beep Pop *end plug*). It features Stick in the Wheel who are gaining more and more great press for their London folk sound, and Diamond Family Archive who bring freak-folk to the proceedings with amazing drumming and playing guitar with a saw. A SAW. Mesmerising stuff.

If you'd rather be singing than watching, there's a singaround in the Crooked Billet on Friday too, and storytelling in St Clement's Church. And this is all before the weekend begins!

From 11am on Saturday, the Library Gardens will be buzzing with live music, food stalls, activities for children and general all-round good vibes. Don't be fooled into thinking it's just in the main park area: there's also a stage in the lower field (which you can get to by slide, just saying) and also a 'Busker's Square' going on from 12.30 in the lovely area outside Ten Green Bottles. A new venue for 2016 is TruLeigh Scrumptious, the lovely vintage tea-room opposite Leigh Library on Broadway West. They'll be featuring FolkWitz, a truly (ha!) brilliant folk covers band who won the Open Mic competition in 2014. There will be the usual cafe fare on offer, but TruLeigh Scrumptious is also licensed for anyone wishing to cool down with some folk music and a beer.

St Clement's Church is hosting a ticketed evening from 6.30 featuring local songwriters collaborating together, in a project named after Jack Forbes, a great contributor for Leigh Folk Festival who sadly passed away. There will also be music in the Clarendon Scout Hut from 9pm until midnight which, I have to say, has always been one of my favourite gigs of the festival in recent years. It'll be dark, by the sea, with amazing music and a really special feel. That one is free and I HIGHLY recommend it.

Sunday sees the whole Old Town taken over by music, spoken word, dancing and endless chips, cockles and beer. What a spectacular combo! The Grand Procession will take place in the High Street at 1.15pm. I'm running a stage back in the Clarendon Scout Hut with my 'Sundown Arts' hat on and we have some brilliant music, comedy and spoken word from Gideon Conn, Helen McCookerybook, Rosie Wilby, Simon Blackman and Plantman. That's from 1.30-4.30.

I also must recommend the Peterboat Stage (particularly Platypus at 2.30 - yes, it clashes with my gig, but I'm just a nice person ok? - and Ed Rome at 5.45, who I spent Saturday night dancing to in a basement in Shoreditch, which makes me sound much cooler than I am). And the Sailing Club is going to be curated by local Americana dreamboat MG Boulter. Oh god, there's just too much good stuff on, isn't there?

I may have overwhelmed you with info here but that has barely scratched the surface. The Leigh Folk Festival is one of the biggest events of our town's history, and I can't wait to be a part of it and enjoy it.

Programmes will be available at all the venues from Thursday evening onwards; watch out for tin-rattlers in Leigh Library Gardens on Saturday so you can plan your weekend! See y'all there...