The Poor Songwriter Tour#2

First gig was at Robin Hood's Bay folk club.

It's an interesting place in that the club takes place in the restaurant room of the Dolphin Pub immediately after the pub stops serving food. Many - maybe most - of the diners are not expecting live music as they finish their meals. It's an unusual arrangement, but one that works because of the charm and charisma of Jim, the club's founder and organiser.

It was rammed when we arrived. Rammed-like-there's-no-room-to-leave-the-instruments-never-mind-set-up rammed. 40 minutes later, with Jim's intervention, we were playing to an audience, largely of folk-club virgins, who had finished their meals and were open-minded enough to listen to some original, sometimes challenging, songs. The Simon Hopper gig song-sheets were well used with the audience joining in with songs as diverse as Bell The Cat, Travelling People, Two In The Margins and A Body Needs A Body To Hold.

It was a great evening with CDs sold and a healthy take from the raffle (our only source of gig-fee-revenue for that evening).

My usual lack of marketing nous (playing songs I can't yet sell on CD) lead to several promises to buy the next CD - the one that contains the songs we played that have not yet been recorded - especially Going and Rope Ladder.

Back to Ugthorp Lodge, our home for the weekend, No more gigs 'till Monday.

It robs the tour of its energy to have a two-day break so early, but that's how it is. Just have to take advantage of the opportunity to rest, read, write and pop down the road to visit with the Wilkinson family at their twice-yearly folk singaround held in their barn at Tranmire on the lovely North Yorks moors. There are worse things. And I heard the Wilkinson family ensemble sing. Magic.