If you like Bellowhead, the extraordinary English folk band, they're playing at a variety of free events all weekend at the South Bank as part of the RFH's reopening 'Overture' weekend.
They've just emailed to say that first of these is an open rehearsal in the Purcell Room this afternoon (Friday) from 4-5. I am just thinking about whether that's doable after school, subject to my parcel arriving before then (my returned Edirol R-09 -- I rather stupidly dropped it at the Chippenham Folk Festival, causing minor but irritating damage. They're not charging me for the fix; which is very nice of them but of course the R-09 is amazingly non-rugged for a field data recorder which is why it broke in the first place).
Tomorrow Spiers & Boden are playing in the bar at 11:30, and then, very excitingly for me, Bellowhead are running a session on the Hayward stage at 1:30. 'Come along bring an instrument, all instruments very welcome, kazoos count'. The music for the tunes is on the Bellowhead website. Some I know well already (Winster Gallop, Speed the Plough), some are impossible in the timescale (The Shropshire Lass, Constant Billy in A) and then there's a whole pile in the middle that I should be able to make a reasonable fist of if I continue practicing furiously. Then there are further outings over the weekend for the full band and also for the jazz trio embedded within it, and a duo of Benji Kirkpatrick and Paul Sartin (2/3 of Faustus). I don't think I'll be able to get to any of those, though. Perhaps if I just hung around RFH all weekend, which might be tempting if we didn't have festivals both of the following two weekends.
