20th Black Horse Music Festival 2008

Review

that took place from...

Friday, May 23rd to Monday, May 26th 2008

During the year Telham is a hamlet with a pub, a church, and a few houses and cottages in an ideal and picturesque setting. Each year for the past nineteen years, during the Bank Holiday at the end of May, thousands of music lovers arrive to enjoy four days of fun and good music in a huge marquee in a small field at the rear of The Black Horse Inn.

It started with a borrowed tatty marquee with a farm trailer as the stage as a folk club reunion, the club closed when the roof literally fell in. The festival, behind The Black Horse Inn on the A2100 between Battle and Hastings, has become “The Biggest Little Festival in Britain” to the nation and the national press.

2008 Festival Review

Friday Afternoon May 23rd
The site is ready.
Tonight's bands have arrived from near and far.
Today's sound checks have taken place.
There is a familiar smell from the barbecue. It is the first of the weekend's fresh burgers, hot dogs, vegi-burgers and onions cooking.
The buses are picking up festival goers from the local designated camp sites and Battle Station.

Friday May 23rd
The doors, bars and barbecue are open and Storm Warning start on time.
What a fantastic set of dynamic "blues" to open this year's festival.
Buick 6 with their style of electric country blues drive the evening on and after a short break Aussi blues guitarist Rob Tognini closes the first day with his blues band.
Buick 6 sold just about all of their excellent new "tinned" CD (you can get it from their website).
It was after midnight when we took the last of the stragglers on the final trip to Battle Station in good time to catch a train back home.

Storm Warning

Buick 6

Rob Tognini

Saturday May 24th

"Our" folk day got underway about midday with a session in the pub. Many floor singers and local performers both current and from over twenty years ago renewed acquaintances and had a drink together before the pub in the club started.
It was a pleasure to see so many familiar happy faces. The sun shone and children of all ages were having their faces painted to look like various animals, clowns and pirates.
The barbecue and bars were busy.
Children were wearing huge hats made of balloons and they enjoyed the Punch and Judy show. On the main stage our MC Ian Dobson and John Towner introduced a reformed 'Mariners' who had performed in the old folk club over 20 years ago and had re-formed once before to play at this festival.
They were followed on stage by the multi talented Tom Bliss who entertained all day wherever our public found him. His set on the main stage was very funny and his set in the club in the pub was "moving".
Incredibly skilful fiddler Garry Blakeley and jovial Pete Fyfe are Band of Two and they appeared on stage with Garry's nephew as a trio. The Dealers known nationally as one of the best unsigned duos appeared as a foursome. Both acts were as visual as ever but both with a much fuller and heavier sound.
Neck had the tent dancing with a London Irish Psycho ceilidh that closed the afternoon.
In the evening our buses brought people back from the campsites and the station to join the many that had stayed. The Durbervilles received a great ovation for their set of alt. country. This Yorkshire band gained many new fans. R Cajun and The Zydeco Brothers were lively and proved why they are rated one of the best Cajun / zydeco bands in the world. The Black Horse crowd loved them, danced to them and shouted for more. It was raining hard when they left the stage and they proved a very hard act for the Hard Travelers to follow. The super group of Dave Sharp of Stiff Little Fingers and the Alarm, Henry McCullough formerly with Wings, Zoot Money, Gary Fletcher and Colin Allen performed a "rock" set that we were told was in the spirit of Woody Gutrhrie.
Kurt Brandon of Spear of Destiny was seen in the marquee at the bar with Dave Sharp and members of Neck. It was nice to see members from bands at the forefront of a young "New Wave" in decades past. They were at the cutting edge of a generation's music when our festival started … twenty years ago.

Sunday May 25th
During sound checking on Sunday Morning, kora player, Mosi Conde and Njega Sohna of Zubop Gambia negotiated for 2008 festival T-shirts with their pictures and the names of all the acts this weekend emblazed on them.

These were our special 20th festival souvenirs.
Wear those T shirts with pride!

Mosi opened the World Music Day with some fabulous Kora playing creating the sound of Africa before Paddy Rasta produced Celtic Reggae. The crowd loved them. No wonder they have proved festival favourites wherever they have played but why did they not play their reggae version of Molly Malone?
Perhaps they wanted people to buy their CD. Mosi Conde (vocals, kora, balafon, guitar, djembe) was back on stage with Njega Sohna (djembe, talking drum, and vocals) and Zubop Gambia. The overall feeling was that this was one of our best World Music afternoons yet. All day Saturday had only cost £15. All day today (Sunday) was a bargain at only £18.
To follow that amazing afternoon was an evening that opened with the Gypsy jazz of French outfit Manlouch who had been playing in the pub entertaining a crowd during the late afternoon too. Their set was a great start to the evening.
What followed was magnificent, Kangaroo Moon were all atmosphere and didgeridoo followed by Transglobal Underground's hard driving sweaty display of Asian and Western Rhythms that turned the throng into a dancing gyrating happy enthralled mob. Was it raining? I cannot remember.

John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett

Monday May 26th
Our feet were back on the ground Bank Holiday Monday as super young talented local musicians took to our stage. They enjoyed the big stage with top professional engineers operating the big desk and controlling their monitors.
They had the benefit of the same top quality sound every other musician had encountered all weekend. For them it was an opportunity to work with the best possible professional sound engineers and sound system.
20 years ago it was state of the ark for us with a rickety farm trailer for a stage in a moth eaten tent.
Now we have state of the art equipment and marquees. The Arcadian from Bexhill who sang their own songs brought a smile to all present, Claudia Coleman a young singer songwriter proved she has an enormous amount of talent , Define The Fallen were as heavy as osmium, Feedback won the Rock Band element of the 2008 Hastings Festival and many new fans today. Exus showed that if they stay together they could be the new Mumm Ra.
The festival closed with a party. Big Boy Bloater and his band put everyone in the mood. John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett took the euphoria higher. (They do have to be bonkers don't they?) Our crowd loved them. Glenn Tilbrook & The Fluffers had a problem getting to Telham and were stuck with their huge Winnebago stricken on the A21 when they should have been sound checking on our stage.

Glenn Tilbrook & The Fluffers

Big Boy Bloater

We had to send a vehicle with a tow bar to tow them and their trailer with all of their kit. The Winnebago never did arrive. We had to take Glenn and the band off home in the early hours of Tuesday morning towing the trailer for them once again. They did put together a set of favourite songs that the crowd sang along with including "Pulling muscles from a shell".
Our crowd went home happy. Many used our free bus. Little did they know at that time as the rain started again that Glenn and The Fluffers were still stranded. We got them home.

We got everyone home safely. … and the festival was over for another year.

If you missed it - you missed out!!

SEE YOU IN 2009!

The festival committee were delighted to present a fantastic array of artists for the festival's 20th celebration. John has been involved from the start twenty years ago.

He says "I am pleased that the festival has grown into such a wonderful, friendly, joyful annual occasion that the whole area looks forward to each year. Each year we try to improve on the last. We have a huge marquee to keep everyone dry should it rain, superb stage, sound and light system. This year we had additional bars and an improved barbecue area.

Thank you all for supporting us. Thank you to our many sponsors including Rother District Council, Hastings Borough Council, The Ultimate Alternative Magazine, The Observer Newspaper Group, Hendy Hire, Cipher Solutions Ltd, Bonners Music Superstore, Warehouse Light & Sound, Hastings Rock 107fm, Shepherd Neame, The Black Horse Inn, Spectrum, and throughout the years BeSure Security Systems, Dama Holdings LLP, Keith Harris and many others.

The Festival would like to thank others for making, what the national press has for many years described as "the biggest little festival in Britain", the happiest festival possible. These are Hoagies crew who have cooked thousands of burgers with a smile. It is a pleasure to see them each year. We would like to thank Big Bernie of Warehouse Light and Sound for the great job he and his crew provide also Alex and the stage crew and Paul at Buzzzz for providing this splendid website. Ian our MC who does far more than entertain and introduce... He has been involved from the start too. I am happy to thank all the volunteers without whom the festival could not happen. Also our neighbours, Telham is a small hamlet with a church and a few cottages and houses and the pub. Its population increases by thousands at the end of May each year. The festival committee has had many hard working members including Ian Dobson, John Towner who together ran the folk club, Eddie Dunford who died last year, Andy Knight (who found our first stage for us. It was a rickety farm trailer), Laurie Bush, Julia and Mick Bovee, Martin Luckhurst and Paul Dengate. We must not forget the many great acts that have played at the festival during the last twenty years. They are far too many to mention and you know who you are. These include a wide variety of acts including Fairport Convention, Liza Carthy, Show of Hands, Oysterband, Waterson: Carthy, poet John Hegley, award winning Lianne Carrol, blues connerseurs Dave Kelly & Paul Jones, Flatville Aces, Shooglenifty, Wilko Johnson, Osibisa, The Blockheads, Paul Young with Tex Mex outfit Los Paceminos, Bakabeyond, vibrant young bands The Dharmas, Mumm Ra and Saggy Puppies, The Blackman Brothers Big Soul Band who gave us many fantastic nights, overseas acts Africans Daby Toure, Safroman, other world music days have included several leading latin bands from Cuba, Bhangra bands from Asia, European acts including Le Gop, Le Trio Perdu and Boum! Other friends that graced the stage of our festival that are no longer with us include some joyous Africans who played with Safromanzini and Trevor Watts, the lovely and extremely talented Eric Roche and Alan Hull of Lindisfarne." Currently the committee is Mark Hawkins, Cliff Hopkins, Hettie Dengate, Mick Hoad, John Wilson and John Shotton.

WE JUST KNOW YOU'LL ENJOY OUR 21st FESTIVAL IN 2009 AS MUCH AS WE WILL!

Festival Committee Chairman

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