When: 30th August – 1st September 2024
Where: Moseley Park, Birmingham, England
Moseley Folk & Arts Festival manages to consistently maintain a delicate balancing act between intimacy, invention, and immersion. Its audience is capped at 4,000 revellers who year after year are offered a diverse, imaginative, and absorbing programme of contemporary folk, music, arts, talks, comedy, spoken word, and entertainment for all the family in what is the most idyllic of settings.
This year marks the 18th annual outing for the Moseley Folk & Arts Festival and the gates to the park open on a lovely, late summer’s afternoon and as the crowd and atmosphere start to slowly build Cat Clyde is the first artist to harness the day’s gathering momentum as she puts in a powerhouse performance made all the more remarkable given we are told she and her band had barely time to rehearse beforehand. The Canadian singer-songwriter seizes the moment with a set rooted in folk, country, and good old fashioned rock’n’roll.
But hold on, the Irish are coming. First it is The Scratch from Dublin’s fair city and should we be left in any doubt about their heritage they treat us to a sparkling set duly influenced by Thin Lizzy – a wee blast of ‘Emerald’ tells us as much – a tune entitled ‘Joseph Ronald Drew’ (named after The Dubliners’ late, great singer), and a rousing cover of The Pogues’ classic ‘Sally MacLennane.’
We don’t have to wait too long for Flogging Molly, the seven-piece Celtic punk band led by Dublin-born vocalist Dave King. We get old songs, new songs, and bags of unbridled energy and enthusiasm. The crowd, which by early evening has swollen considerably in numbers, is already in party mode and the mood quickly becomes one of unquestionable celebration. As twilight begins to fall, Moseley Park and Pool is a mighty fine place to be.
Beans On Toast expresses mock surprise that Birmingham is “so leafy” before launching headlong into ‘A Beautiful Place.’ His diverse set features songs of positivity, the collapse of civilisation, and trees, all delivered in “a suitable rock’n’roll fashion.” He is not alone in falling in love with Moseley Folk Festival, accurately describing the event as having “lots of good people, dressed in cool clothes, eating great food.” He ends with a moving a cappella reading of ‘Money For War’ before leaving the stage with a heartfelt hope for “peace and love.”
It’s then left for the Levellers to take Friday’s fabulous fun even higher, albeit with equally serious messages of disenfranchisement and empowerment enshrined in their anarchic folk-punk. They are not the band who have made the most appearances at Moseley Folk for nothing as they firmly embody the festival’s principle of inclusivity, spirit of togetherness, and strong sense of community.
Moseley Folk’s core value of non-discrimination is most refreshingly reflected in Saturday’s schedule. In marked contrast to many mainstream music festivals, Moseley has six female artists appearing one after the brilliant other on the main stage today. So we get the absolutely fabulous running order of Leah Wilcox, Dawn Landes, Katherine Priddy, Bess Atwell, The Staves, and Ireland’s fastest rising star, CMAT.
Leah Wilcox is one of several artists appearing over the weekend courtesy of a partnership between Moseley Folk and the BIMM Music Institute and Moonshine Collective Industry Programme. It is further evidence of the festival’s commitment to the promotion of emerging local talent.
And given the day’s strong emphasis upon female performers it seems entirely apposite that Dawn Landes is here to perform material from her latest album, The Liberated Woman’s Songbook, where she reimagines folk songs about women’s activism from a songbook published in 1971 at the height of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Accompanied on keys by her husband Creighton Irons, the pair had only arrived in the UK this morning from their home in North Carolina, USA, making the spirit and buoyancy of their early afternoon set all the more remarkable. They ended with Peggy Seeger’s inspirational ‘Different Therefore Equal’, giving their version of the song its first ever public performance.
Katherine Priddy has been coming to Moseley Folk since she was 16 years of age. And the wonderful folk singer and songwriter from Birmingham is but one of many artists over the course of the weekend who express a deep connection to, and love for the place. It really is quite special. As is her set. She dedicates the song ‘Wolf’ to another great friend of the festival, Janice Long, the English broadcaster who sadly passed away nearly three years ago and whose name is given to the second stage at Moseley.
As well as moving the sound desk further back in the main arena, thus opening up the area in front of the two music stages, the relocation of Speakers Corner from the tennis courts to the place previously reserved for Folk on the Slope is another change in the site’s layout that has been made this year. They are both positive developments with the latter increasing potential capacity and the distance from both music stages, thus reducing the risk of sound “bleeding” from them.
This afternoon, Speakers Corner plays host to an excellent In Conversation event with the folk singer Vashti Bunyan who was promoted as a pop star in the ‘60s and then turned her back on the music business altogether for the next 30 years. She speaks openly about these experiences as well as reading extracts from her book, Wayward: Just Another Way To Live.
On the day when tickets have gone on sale for the recently reformed Oasis, The Staves are another prime example of what siblings can achieve when working together. For sisters Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor, though, there is no long-standing bitterness or, presumably, dynamic pricing, just a collection of fine tunes and some beautiful harmonies. “Isn’t it exciting?” they ask on ‘All Now.’ Yes, it most certainly is.
CMAT says that earlier in her career she had deliberately mis-categorised herself musically as a “teenage pop sensation”, presumably to throw everyone off the scent that her first loves were, in fact, folk and country. As if to emphasise the point about folk music she tells us that her favourite album of all time is Solomon’s Seal by English folk royalty Pentangle before proceeding to play a sublime interpretation of ‘Willy O’Winsbury’ from that very record.
CMAT is probably much closer to being a true pop star than she will ever be a dyed-in-the-wool folkie but her supremely diverse set shows she is equally comfortable with either. And during ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby’, such is her magnetic charm, she even manages to get the entire main stage crowd engaged in some impromptu yet highly choreographed line dancing.
At Speakers Corner, Birmingham comedian Lindsey Santoro delivers a very lively ‘post-watershed’ set, stopping for breath only to put a nuisance heckler firmly in his place. Following her, the Midlands-based comedian Matt Bragg inherits the same problem during his set which adds a slightly surreal experience for both the audience and Matt himself.
Back on the main stage and before tearing into a seriously life-affirming ‘Come On Eileen’, Kevin Rowland rightly concludes that “it’s a big night in Birmingham.” Back on home soil he looks so relaxed and happy. And he has every right to be so, because in concert this year you surely won’t experience three better songs performed consecutively than ‘Geno’ (dedicated to Kevin Archer, co-founding member of Dexys Midnight Runners), ‘Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile)’ – complete with accomapnying image of Jocky Wilson in the bath with his darts and a dimple mug full of lager – and ‘Until I Believe In My Soul.’ It is Dexys at their most brilliant best.
After all the heightened energy and explosive excitement of Saturday night, the counterbalance of Sunday afternoon’s gentler and more relaxed vibe is most welcome. Harnessing that more reflective groove are Hejira. Taking their name from the masterpiece that is Joni Mitchell’s seventh studio album, the seven-piece band celebrate the music of the Canadian legend, particularly from the second half of the 70s when she was venturing into a more jazz-textured territory. Hejira do these timeless, transcendental songs huge justice.
Returning to Speakers Corner, the Birmingham independent bookshop The Heath Bookshop presents another excellent In Conversation, this time with Helen O’Hara, violinist, composer, arranger, musical director and co-producer known for her work with Dexys Midnight Runners, Dexys, Tanita Tikaram and Tim Burgess. She talks honestly around topics covered in her book What’s She Like: A Memoir. It is especially interesting to hear about her early time with Dexys Midnight Runners (she was the band’s violinist from 1982-87). She had joined them at a crossroads in her life and had to decide whether to follow her classical training or go with her heart and join Dexys.
The music of Smoke Fairies is spectral, spatial and demands little urgency from the listener. It is perfect for this time of day and this type of place. That Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ is the first tune pumping out of the festival PA after Mdou Moctar leaves the main stage tells you all you need to know about the Tuareg songwriter and guitarist’s set. He releases the handbrake on the day’s musical output thus far, shifting the dial constantly upwards with a flurry of jaw-dropping desert blues riffs.
With a series of suitable hoedowns, Cut A Shine barn dance band then set the scene for Moseley Folk’s annual procession, whereby a colourful, vibrant troupe of players and sundry masked characters led by a symbolic corn dolly wend their way round the festival site to mark the changing of the season.
It is then left to the individually diverse talents of Kate Rusby, Brown Horse, and Sunday night’s headliners, the Scottish indie legends Belle and Sebastian to bring the 18th edition of Moseley Folk & Arts Festival to a hugely enjoyable and highly successful close.
It may well be a day early, but the charismatic Yorkshire folk singer Kate Rusby ensures that her stunning interpretation of The Bangles’ classic ‘Manic Monday’ is not even remotely out of place. And through the medium of another cover, Brown Horse have protest and unity on their mind as they give Woody Guthrie’s ‘All You Fascists Bound To Lose’ the fully-blown Neil Young and Crazy Horse guitar-driven treatment. The song’s call to confront hatred, greed and racism remains just as relevant today as it did when Guthrie wrote it 80 years ago.
And Belle and Sebastian raise the anticipation levels of us returning here next year to do it all over again by delivering a lovely career-spanning set – opening with ‘The State I’m In’ from their 1996 debut album Tigermilk and including a couple of tracks from last year’s return-to-form Late Developers – that is full to brimming with pop savvy and sensibility.
2024 has been another challenging year for smaller, independent music festivals in the UK. Already this year, 60 festivals have either been postponed or cancelled altogether. Many of the reasons for this have been well documented, ranging from rising production costs to financial instability, an oversaturated market, and the vagaries of the British weather.
Against this backdrop of uncertainty and economic struggle, Moseley Folk & Arts Festival not only continues to survive but also flourishes. The resilience and unbridled passion of the event organisers is crucial here. Other significant contributory factors are Moseley Folk having developed and sustained an incredibly loyal fanbase over the years by consistently providing them with an exciting and varied programme of entertainment that bucks the generic booking trends often seen in other festivals. The importance of it also taking place in sumptuous surroundings that offer such a warm, inviting and certainly the most inclusive of environments cannot be overstated.
Over the years I have been at many, many music festivals of all shapes and sizes from Glastonbury to Green Man, from Cambridge Folk to Cropredy, and Love Supreme to the long since sadly defunct Long Division in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and can readily affirm that due to its ongoing first-class organisation and effective delivery Moseley Folk & Arts Festival continues to punch well above its weight. Long may it run.
Additional reporting: Claire Eggleston
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos from Moseley Folk & Arts Festival 2024 are here:
