Green Man 2014 - expect the unexpected

So here I am. Back home and finally awake again.
My first trip to Green Man Festival is replete with memories, thoughts and photos. I haven't even looked through all of the pictures that I took but here are a few, of very different aspects, that I have...

Don't bet against kids. Martha Tilston sound checking. Chai Wallahs stage Sunday morning.

The last time that I saw her play live was at the early 18th century Rook Lane Chapel here in Frome. The folk that invested in that would certainly not have approved of mysticism...

...or pagan imagery for that matter. There is a remedy for all of this.

First Aid Kit. Mountain Stage, Sunday.

This was a world away from the first time that I saw First Aid Kit live - that was in the (then particularly) tiny Tipi stage at End Of The Road Festival 2009.

Real - Martha Tilston live at Rook Lane Chapel

I have mentioned the album Real - Live at Union Chapel before. It is amazing but only half as good as the real deal.  Imagine then my delight when I discovered, some weeks ago now, that Martha Tilston was including Frome's Rook Lane Chapel on her itinerary.

This is what happens when the late Victorian Gothic revival of Union Chapel is replaced with very early 18th century 'reformist' architecture.
Is this sacrilege? Hell, no! this building had served its original purpose for more than a quarter of a millennium before it was left to go to ruin - only then to come back again.
  

Rook Lane Chapel is simultaneously Frome's oldest and most modern live arts venue and, needless to say, the music and performance were quite equal to the challenge.  For those that weren't able to be there new songs were performed - perhaps three or four, come to think of it in retrospect.
  

Yes there was banter, there was chat with the audience, but in the silences you could have heard a pin drop and for all the right reasons.
And then there was the encore...

Arts venues.

Frome is, for a town of approximately 25,500 inhabitants, blessed with a remarkable selection of arts venues, both for static displays and performance arts.  In the latter category the Cheese and Grain, capacity 800 and hopefully soon to be augmented in both capacity and facilities, is the most versatile if not particularly architecturally distinguished. It is a 19th century produce-market hall that has been adapted many times since. Frome also has two theatres, The Memorial Theatre completed in 1924 in memory of those killed in the Great War and the more recent Merlin Theatre, which seats about 250 and is part of the Frome College campus. All three are used for all kinds of performance arts and other live shows.
Then there are many historic pubs, some of which regularly feature live music: amongst those most active are The Griffin and The Olive Tree (link currently broken, phone 01373 467140) and also many other venues that are used from time to time, most notably for the annual Frome Festival - taking place this year from 8 - 17 July.
One however, that survives at all more by luck than judgement, is the most architecturally significant and spectacular by a long mile.  Built when Frome was a town very wealthy indeed, based on the wool trade, it spent 251 years in continuous use as a non-conformist place of worship before it was declared redundant and then spent the next quarter of a century falling into decay. It was eventually compulsorily purchased by the local authority and restored.
It now houses, appropriately enough, an architects' practise in the ante-rooms while the main section is used as a space for static and performance arts both traditional and modern by the trust Rook Lane Arts.

As well as being an early example of such a building on a grand scale the bountiful finance saw to it that it did not have the minimalist functionality of many and that its patrons succumbed to more than a flourish of the baroque. Nobody - whose mission was truly to live the life of an ascetic - would ever have sanctioned windows like those!
When it was built John Wesley certainly wasn't preaching simplicity and sobriety to the masses in open-air sermons across Britain, such as became his trademark, not least because he was then only a toddler (b. June 28, 1703)!
   
I'm not the religious kind in any traditional sense but wish to thank those that were for the venue.

Real - Martha Tilston live at The Union Chapel

Now I realise that I made an error of judgement here.  I mentioned in the side-bar, back in December, an album that I regard as the live affirmation of the folk-influence in new music, both in the UK and also in the Americas.  I never expected that it would become so sought after...

That it has done so fully justifies it being the subject of my first blog post of the second decade of the 21st century - and the most common key words that led people here in the last 36 hours!  It's awesome and I thank you.
It is available to buy from the link below - and being 'Real' you need it in a physical format so SQRCD06 is available, direct from the artist:
http://www.marthatilston.co.uk/shop.html


This is the track list:

• Red
• Duvet
• Space
• Winter flowers
• Artificial
• Seagull
• Who are you
• Golden
• Corporations
• Good world

Direct artist-to-listener sales is a trend that I can see making much headway in 2011, whether that be via download, CD or vinyl.