By Derek Brandon,

It beats me how anyone can organise a festival like this years ‘Ironbridge’, what with getting not one but three USA bands (as well as a host of British bands), all the security, masses of trade stalls, marquees and the like - Mal Salisbury is to be congratulated. But that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it all - I thought the security staff and office staff lacking in some areas of the personal interface and, though I can test anybody, I wasn’t the only one who thought so! But it all seemed to go like clockwork.

Despite the “3 USA bands” bit, only one could be reckoned to be a bluegrass band and that was Lou Reid and Carolina. They are reported in detail in Dr.Paul’s account, but I think there’s room for more here.

The new line-up was more together after playing Thursday in London and, though the Rainford one was brilliant, the Friday night concert better still! Joost had clearly settled in with the band and vice-versa. A major problem that needs sorting out is the one-way noise pollution - the amplified Big Drum in the large *&%@$ music marquee was very obtrusive in the smaller bluegrass marquee and it spoiled my enjoyment of LR & Co. But there were ‘magic moments’ - like when, mid-song, the power failed completely! Totally unphased, the quartet continued singing in the dark and, as flashlights were lit around the audience, grouped close together off the stage, right up against the front row. You could hear a pin drop - all talking stopped and the only sound was the now overbearing thud of the Big Drum. The first number in the dark got great applause and they started on a second one. Part way through this the power came back on and LR & Carolina received a standing ovation!

Lou Reid at Ironbridge

LR&Co. did a terrific workshop on Saturday morning in which they demonstrated some songs and techniques and answered many questions. Someone asked “Will you play mandolin?” and Lou replied “Sorry, I left it home” In another ‘magic moment’ a young Dutch boy presented him with his own mandolin, which Lou played extremely impressively. Instead of giving it back to the lad he said, taking an enormous risk, “Come on up and join us!” which he did - fortunately he was very competent and fitted in well, so Lou continued the workshop as a 5-piece!

But the biggest risk and final ‘magic moment’ was when, just before the final Concert on Sunday afternoon, Lou invited a young Czech man he didn’t know, who spoke little English, to join them on stage playing mandolin! Yep, it worked out better than fine and Lou passed breaks around the 5-piece just as he had at Rainford when Joost was new in. I’ll bet if he had a regular 5-piece he’d invite a 6th aboard just for the ‘session touch’!

Tim & Mollie O’Brien and The O-Boys announced that they weren’t playing Bluegrass and played something else very well instead.

The Lou Reid & Carolina Workshop

The third USA band was Whiskey Hollow from Chicago, with a fiddle, dobro, banjo, guitar and bass line-up. The lead singer was both good and powerful. One description of their style was “Old time in overdrive”, as exemplified by their rendition of Hang me, O Hang Me, and that term seems appropriate; but this writer found it hard to take seriously a band with props such as a pink-coloured fish skeleton hanging from the fiddle (maybe it was a ‘red herring’?), a guitarist with a ‘big apple’ hat and banjo picker/frailer with pigtails and a Confederate cap. A mandolin was brought on that was so out of tune it would have taken weeks to get it right, but they played it anyhow. They did play some bluegrass - one announced “a hard driving BG number in the high lonesome key of B”, and indeed it was. But not enough of it, and I cut out when the fiddler produced a brand-new tenon saw, a 1997 Spear & Jackson. He got quite a nice tone out of it, but I prefer the sound of a pre-war Rathbone. The sawyer played some Israeli Hava-Nagila -grass which the stomping children in front of the front row just loved!

Many think that Tom Travis has cancelled the Edale festival this year, but that’s a con - he just moved it to Ironbridge and that’s why it rained.....

Derek Brandon, Chester

Updated 23rd Jan 1999