This weekend was pretty manic. We stayed up all night with the church youth group we volunteer for at their annual Easter Vigil. Much coffee and chocolate was consumed and we rounded the night off nicely with a wee campfire and S’mores – afterwhich I found myself with severe sugar shock…
…so a couple of hours kip later I decided to head back out to Portobello, near Edinburgh to join a Sunday afternoon folk session.
I’d been humming and hawing about this for weeks now. I’m pretty comfortable playing in the bedroom but out in public is a whole other story. After walking into the Dalriada pub and hearing the quality of the musicians at the table I almost turned heel and walked straight back out the door. There was a banjo player playing three finger style who may have given Scruggs himself a run for his money, a fiddle player, three guitarist/singers, a lefty switching between guitar and clawhammer banjo and me with my ukulele and trusty banjo.
Me – “Any chance I can sit in? I’m not that good so please be gentle”
Fiddle Player – “Aye, but y’ell hae tae gie us a song”
Me – “Oh Dear” (actually it was a more profane reply but like I said; I’d been up all night)
So off they went, and I tried to keep up. And they were relatively gentle. I have to confess chickening out of a couple of solo breaks after a nod came in my direction and I’ve got a world of stuff to learn but it was such a buzz to be playing with proper musicians who seemed so comfortable as to be part of the furniture.
I don’t know if it was because it was Easter Sunday or because it was such a lovely day but the place was rammed and it was amazing hearing a hundred-odd folks singing along to the likes of “Whiskey in the Jar” and “I’ll Fly Away” as well as some of the Scottish classics too. The three hours flew by!
Now I’m going to get my “learn on” and prepare for the next session. Sorry Mish – Better get some earplugs!
