Gigs – CAMUS

Our first visit to Royston Folk Club was excellent – nice venue, lovely crowd, and thanks for the attentive sound mixing! Nice to meet some friends there who hadn’t heard our live set. Looking forward to a return visit …

Weston Colville Reading Room

We really enjoyed our return visit to the good folk of Weston Colville. Lots of very kind remarks, lusty chorus singing, and CDs were sold. It was our first standing up gig too – very liberating!

It was also our first outing for the new Shetland set: the lovely air Auld Swarra, followed by three fearsome Shetland reels. Here’s the video.

Whittlesford Village Festival

We had a good 40 minute set here, and once again an appreciative audience. And sold some CDs! The pile is diminishing…. Thanks to Whittlesford for having us.

Ely Folk Festival

Thanks to Sue Marchant for booking us at Ely. And thanks to an appreciative audience, who enjoyed our set and sang the choruses enthusiastically. A lovely festival, where we met up with lots of old friends. Thanks too to Mark Walsh of BBC Radio Cambridgeshire who covered our set in his Sunday evening show.

Cambridge Folk Club, June 10th

It was lovely to return to the Cambridge Folk Club: so much Cambridge musical history, entangled with ours. It was a sunny summer’s evening, the audience was enthusiastic and welcoming, and Michael McGovern, who supported us, was delightful – soulful songs and a lovely voice. Hope we’re back before too long!

Folk band Camus playing at Cambridge Folk Club.

All Saints Church, Landbeach, 20th May

This was a fundraiser to buy two new bells for the church. Nice to play in the setting of the church and great acoustic, very appreciative crowd, and a healthy turnover of CDs! Not to mention the support act – the handbell ringers.

Folk band Camus playing at Landbeach church in Cambridgeshire.

Black Fen Folk Club, 20th February 2022

Folk band Camus playing at Black Fen folk club in Cambridge.

It was great to catch up with old friends on our home patch at the Black Fen club. We enjoyed the floor spots, meeting some new talent as well as hearing old mates from a very long time ago, and some proper chorus singing. It was the first outing for Brian’s song The Apron of Flowers, too. Here’s the video.

And here’s one of our sets featuring the Northumbrian small pipes: the Irish air, Boulavogue; and Mr Somerville’s Fancy, a 3/2 Hornpipe by Andrew, a characteristically Northumbrian form.

And here’s Andrew’s two tunes, the CherryTree and May Day.

Foyer Folk, Saffron Hall, 21st January 2022

Our first gig of 2022 was amazing. We were praying it wouldn’t be cancelled with the rise in Covid Omicron infections over the winter, but it was more than we could have hoped for: over 100 tickets sold, and street food in the form of fish’n’chips! (and we sold a fair few albums – thanks to our lovely, very appreciative audience). Thanks too to Jon Hart, whose warm hospitality and brilliant sound engineering made us very comfortable. Here’s one of the sets we played: Cold Fen, featuring Greg’s lovely slow air. It’s the title track of the album we made under the name of our ceilidh band, The Great Eastern Ceilidh Company.

Here’s another set: two Northumbrian tunes, Bonny Tweedside and Cuckold Come out of the Amrey.

And one more – a song by Brian, Bright Groves, which tells the story of the Irish Brigades who tragically found themselves facing one another on opposite sides in the American Civil War. It’s our world premiere of the song!

Ely Folk Club, 13th October 2021

Our second live gig after the pandemic lockdowns, and Ely Folk Club’s first experiment at a physical event. It was a great evening: thanks to Andy and Ruth for inviting us. As usual, we began the set with Northumbrian tunes: Air Moving, by Kathryn Tickell; Because he was a Bonny Lad; Holmes’ Fancy. The first time we’ve performed them with Brian!

It was a great pleasure too to meet Andrew’s old friend Steve Roud, of the Roud folk song index, who happened to be in the audience with his family. As it happened, we were playing The Keeper, a version taken from the New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, edited by Steve with Julia Bishop. Here it is.

Our set also contained our first performance of Brian’s song The Roaring Boys, a quirky narrative of a group of eccentric characters in a 19th century New England tavern. Here’s the video.

We also played Andrew’s song about the closing of the Hartlepool steelworks, inspired by the life of his grandad who was a foreman there. Good chorus singing by the audience! Well done Ely!

St Neots Folk Festival, Saturday night, 25th September 2021.

This was our first live gig since we played the St Neots Folk Club in February 2020 (see below). It was great to be back at the Priory Centre, and we had fun, and congratulate the audience on their chorus-singing! It was our first gig with Brian, who made a dramatic entrance in time for our second number having raced from Gatwick after a holiday in Italy.