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Monday 12 September 2011

Pontypool Jazz Festival


The photographer clearly had an eye for Tom!


The Pontypool Jazz Festival - formerly “Jazz in the Park,” - focuses on Welsh musicians to perform each year.  (It used to be in the park until one year the rains were so bad that the Afon Llwyd burst its banks and flooded the marquees!  Now it’s in various rooms in the Pontypool Active Living Centre)  Being a Hughes, you would be right in thinking that my family originate from Wales - my Granddad from Llanelli and my Grandma from Blaengwynfy.  Despite being London-based, I managed to get my band booked.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to sing my only Welsh song - Sosban Fach - as I had had a couple of bad experiences in the past...

Firstly, when I sang it in South Wales the last time, I was booed (mockingly) for my choice of song because it’s the Llanelli Scarlet’s Rugby Union team song, and I was in Swansea where the Ospreys reign supreme!  Can’t sing it in South Wales then.
Secondly, I had a gig in North Wales in May but when I entered the venue and was greeted in Welsh by the landlady, I realised that my attempt at this language needed far more practise and therefore would have to be left in the folder!  Can’t sing it North Wales then.  Oh dear.
Darren and Tom waiting
for dinner... Rick at the
back of the queue feeling
forlorn!

So my all-English set at Pontypool began, and went very well.  The festival seemed to be well-organised apart from a couple of hitches (we had to work hard to get the sound guy to pinch a monitor from another stage as ours didn’t have one, and a bar-lady tried to charge me one pound for a jug of water for the band!)  We were on stage in the dance studio - a rather small space on the third floor of the Leisure Centre - which wasn’t ideal only because we were competing with a (much) louder band blasting it out on the floor below us, and we weren’t in a thoroughfare which would have encouraged more listeners.  What a shame that that river burst its banks a few years back (apparently it only happens about once every 50 years) to put an end to the outdoor festival.  

3 Welsh-cheese pizza
It’s also a shame that Pontypool was so far away because jazz festivals are usually great places to wander around and listen to other bands.  But, because we had a long journey back (mine involved a night bus and ended up being about 4.5 hours), we had to head back soon after we’d finished playing.  But we still had a chance to hang out a bit - I wanted to sample the “3 Welsh-cheese Pizza” (I must have mumbled when I ordered it because the waiter nearly brought me 3 of them!) - so we got to chill out a bit which is one of the delights of being on tour.  Rick clearly had other moods on his mind judging by his posing in these pictures... But great fun was had by all, and looking forward to the next tour date which is Friday 23rd September in Ilminster.


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