Truck Festival 2014 - settled in The Saloon

It happens that this last weekend I ended up too busy to complete the post about my time spent in The Saloon at Truck Festival the previous one.  I wasn't even involved with music, though plenty more has now come my way, by hook and by crook. I'm always on the lookout for new music but I am certainly never going to complain when it comes to me from its author (so more for later in the week).
It is a hard life but by Friday evening at Truck Festival I was comfortable in the saloon. I returned later Friday evening to see a band that, until I was in The Saloon last year, I was completely unaware of:

The Redlands Palomino Company and now the 2014 LP 'Carelessly Broken'.

I had heard the album, it was released in April and I purchased it, but live it is something else. In this case I will serve my blog with pictures taken live and refer you to this review of the album; we don't need to trample on each others feet, there is plenty of music to go round. It was probably just Saturday but whatever; it was time to catch The Dreaming Spires on the small stage.

I find it next to impossible to tear myself away any time pedal steel is involved.

Right. We are now into Saturday proper and that was to provide surprises all of its own.  I can't be two places at once and saw Italian duo M+A on the main stage instead, so the first Saloon act I saw was  the second to play and that was The Buffalo Skinners.

More a Truck-typical guitar band than most on this smallest of stages is, however, not a half-hearted compliment. It was good, very good, and beyond that it is the variety, across any and all stages, that is one of the strongest points of Truck Festival. It may not be huge, might not have the biggest of head-liners but ultimately it is the strength in depth and the values that matter.

After this, I have to admit, I took a sizeable time-out to visit the other stages and have something to eat. Before returning in the evening I headed back to see another artist of whom I was hitherto quite unaware - Nova Scotian Gabriel Minnikin - and that decision was repaid many times over. In the space of a half-hour set.

Takamine 12-string backed only by pedal steel and occasional harmonica. Guitar porn.

In the evening I headed back in good time to see My Darling Clementine as I had heard many good reports. I made sure to arrive in time in order to get a good spot and hopefully some pictures.

 I accomplished that mission and caught The Saloon at the quietest I saw it all weekend.

    

Every band needs a tour manager and front-of-house presence and My Darling Clementine certainly has one.  I was sitting by the bar, making sure my camera settings were good before the set (I had made that mistake earlier in the afternoon) when she introduced herself - she is their daughter and is not yet in her teens.  This might have caught me off guard had I not, a couple of years ago and also at a festival, met Ned The Kids' Dylan for the first time in somewhat similar circumstances although in this case he was the artist and his parents tour managers and all the rest.

The set was top drawer. Music and asides combined beautifully.

Next up was Hans Chew and while I was aware of his music I wasn't quite expecting this.

If I had to select one picture that I took in The Saloon, that really sums the whole stage up...

This is it.

Truck Festival 2014 - life, live in The Saloon

This time last Friday evening I was exactly in the place I'm about to write about. By the end of a festival weekend there is often something of a desire to spend a weekend at home (writing about it). To be honest, however, I'd quite happily be back there or somewhere similar right now.
Almost all of the time that I wasn't watching electric guitar bands on the main stage, or the equivalent delights of the Barn stage, this is likely where I was to be found instead. It has already featured in my posts about Truck Festival 2014 and certainly did so heavily in those of Truck Festival 2013. It was a new feature then. I know what I like when I come across it and my only concern was whether it could live up to my memories of it last year.
I'm not one to be shy of seeking out new music, especially in genres that I like - and so very much including folk, roots and Americana - yet last year it served up several acts the knowledge of which I was quite naïve. It was certainly no less so this year but I made it something of a mission to explore and, if possible, photograph. I'm not sure how well I succeeded in the latter but I thoroughly enjoyed trying. The music was amazing. All of it.

The action started a couple of hours after that on the other stages: at 2:20pm Friday with Delta Mainline. A big sound on a small stage, and a guitar band (vide infra) to boot, that hails from Edinburgh.
Three things to note here:

• The Saloon is just a tin shed (as many of the prototypes no doubt were) but sheds and music have a certain affinity - particularly this one!
• It is one stage on which a wide-angle lens is as useful as a telephoto one, and I'm still missing a band member here.
• The Dreaming Spires' drum-kit is generic, for all to use, although the band did perform there twice over the weekend too.

This is one from the outside, looking in. The Saloon has doors that open both ways and that, for important reasons, one can see both over and under.

Otis Gibbs - Saturday afternoon.

   

By mid-afternoon I felt like I was part of the furniture, often sat on the floor, and either nobody seemed to notice or they didn't care. That is a good place in which to be.

The August List. The duo have yet to release an album, but it is in the works. Watch this space!

After this I wandered back out into the summer sunlight for a few hours, only to return without remembering to change my camera settings for the evening gloom back in The Saloon. As luck would have it the next act was 'Rutland troubadour' Paul McClure. My bacon was saved because his tales between songs are as long as, if maybe not actually longer than, the songs themselves. As for the song and what it is about, Lord only knows. 

We are up to early Friday evening now.

Putting this supposed précis together is actually taking longer than listening to the original performance. Do I regret starting this - post or even festival-going? Hell no.
Maybe I shall split the post into a Saturday portion and a Sunday one but, either way, I'm not going to finish it on Friday.
And not to be finished on Saturday either, but for different reasons. Riding the iron horses...

Truck Festival 2013 - The Saloon

Until last weekend I had only been to Truck Festival once before, in 2011. I had a good time there then but this time I fell in love with it. This is one of the reasons why.
  
Most festivals lack a venue quite as fit-for-purpose as the 'Great Western Whisky Saloon and Soul Blues Kitchen', otherwise known as 'The Saloon', and I know I am not the only one to feel this way. I know that I will not finish this post this evening... It will have to await my return to blogging sometime on Saturday afternoon after venturing to see one of the acts, which I saw there last Saturday, tomorrow evening!
It was always intimate, sometimes it was packed to bursting point, but it was always worth the effort to be there and it was underwritten by independent label Clubhouse Records. Here are a few pictures that might explain why that is so:

Pete Greenwood (early on Saturday evening).

  

Troubadour Rose, late Saturday afternoon.

Don't even dare bet against the forthcoming album - Find An Arrow (2 September).

Swindlestock, live in 'The Saloon' @ Truck Festival 2013. You need 'Pilgrim Blues'. Really.
Probably these too.

Stevie Ray Latham, same stage but on Friday afternoon.

  

This one, however, pretty much sums it all up...

Redlands Palomino Company and ad hoc guests performing on Saturday evening.