Riverdale

The Forge is a nice little venue, and the beer at the bar is generally good, shame they don't re-open the bar at the end of the performance, it would have been good to have had a cup of espresso before the long trek home. But it didn't really detract from a lovely gig; Fay well supported by Rob Harbron and Sam Sweeney on a variety of fiddles, concertina, nyckelharpa, guitar, percussion and background vocals.

Many of her songs are somewhat macabre, and as there's no shortage of such material in the folk canon, it was nice to hear songs that are more unusual, although I did detect at least one from her partner's A Folk Song A Day project so we can look forward to them becoming more common. But they were all presented beautifully, almost with an innocence that the wicked grin at her intros and outros belied. The audience didn't seem to mind about the rather grue content; joining in with the choruses with a gusto not often heard at the Forge.

Her voice makes a great change from so many of the current offerings on the folk circuit, there is so much of the husky, mid-Atlantic there, but Fays clear voice with the Yorkshire shining through puts them all to shame, showing that the best way to present folk music is with your own voice, a principle that she underlines with her support and encouragement for singers of all abilities. Rob Harbron played with his usual undemonstrative skills and Sam Sweeney showed off his talents with one of the more esoteric instruments of the folk world. The music they played was nicely arranged, supporting Fay in her songs and providing her with respite from singing with sets of new and old tunes.

The sound was excellent, extremely well balanced which contributed to a very pleasant gig, we will want to see them again.