Music / Reviews

Review: Downend Folk & Roots Tenth Anniversary – ‘Embodies everything that is good in the world’

By Gavin McNamara  Tuesday Jul 23, 2024

At a time when live music venues are struggling, when any number of festivals have packed it all in, when musicians are finding it hard to make a living, this is something to celebrate.

Downend Folk & Roots (formerly Downend Folk Club) is ten years old and they’re throwing a party. Three days of wonderful music, dancing, community action; three days of friendship, laughter and beautiful revelry.

Friday’s ceilidh with the Molecatchers at the helm got everyone up and dancing – photo: Downend Folk & Roots

Friday starts with a ceilidh, and it is an absolutely glorious thing. Young dance with old, pink mohicans dance with sensible cardigans, everybody smiles and laughs and smiles again.

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As The Molecatchers provide the square dances, so hands and feet twirl around in intricate knots, dancers weaving and spinning. Some of them do it right nearly all of the time.

This is exactly what Downend has always been about: a sense of community and fun, an overwhelming love of the music but a refusal to take it all too seriously. By the end of the evening the party is well and truly underway, ready for a whole day of music on Saturday.

Katie Grace Harris switched between piano, accordion and dulcimer – photo: Downend Folk and Roots

One of the more recent innovations at Downend has been the Saturday afternoon family concert. A space where everyone is welcome, where the noise from little ones is celebrated and everyone is allowed to have a good time.

Katie Grace Harris, a singer songwriter from Oxfordshire, fits the bill perfectly. Switching effortlessly between piano, accordion and dulcimer, as well as between trad and her own songs, Harris is never anything other than full of joy.

Bedlam Boys and, Ralph McTell’s Gypsy are toe-tappers made for joining in while her own songs lean heavily on her piano and have a Radio 2 smoothness. With Regret has a polite political under-tow, while The Ring is heartfelt and lovely, showing off her high, expressive voice. Throw in some audience participation with spoons and the Downend party is up and running.

It just wouldn’t have been right to throw this party and not invite Road Not Taken. If this folk club has a House Band then they are probably it, although they have been on a self-imposed hiatus for the last few years.

Formed in the club and featuring Ant Miles, Downend’s founder, Road Not Taken are fantastic. Anita Dobson’s voice has always been their focal point and, on I’ll Weave My Love A Garland and Suzanne Vega’s The Queen and The Soldier, it is as high, pure and expressive as ever. They take these wonderful, familiar, traditional songs and remind us just why we love them.

Road Not Taken features the club’s founder, Ant Miles – photo: Road Not Taken

Janice Burns and Jon Doran also plunder the tradition, and they do so with a gentleness that is simply beguiling. In a set stuffed with changelings, devilry, nature and the seasons, Burns and Doran cast a hazy warmth over the Saturday afternoon.

Burns’ voice is a fabulous thing, giving a sense of defiant beauty to the Song of the Fishgutters; it is upbeat and pacey. As Doran lends her his harmony, the two voices blend seamlessly. Georgie and Love You No More are sublime.

Saturday afternoon ends with a Downend Folk & Roots favourite. Jim Moray has been the club’s patron since the very beginning and has played here at least twice before.

To help with the celebrations he plays a set that is, more or less, one that he would have played in 2014. Even after 20-odd years of making music, folk is still startling in Moray’s hands. He doesn’t try to make things beautiful or nice, instead you feel the anger, the pain, the desperation when he sings.

The storytelling on Lord Douglas and Jenny of the Moor is extraordinary, the simple electronics on Lemady still thrilling, the ferocity of Jim Jones in Botany Bay breathtaking.

It is, however, Sounds of Earth that continues to be Moray’s greatest (should have been a) hit. It is the best song that anyone plays all day, probably the best song that Downend Folk & Roots has ever heard. There are tears shed at the back.

The fact that he follows it with a version of Roy Orbison’s Crying makes it even better. Touchingly, Moray dedicates two Morris tunes to the much missed Downend stalwart Cliff Wooley: in doing so he emphasises everything wonderful about this place.

Jim Moray’s artfully crafted folk brought the audience to tears – photo: Barry Savell

After Moray’s inventiveness, Saturday evening carries with it echoes of a more traditional Folk Club. It turns out that this is a brilliant thing. Gavin Osborn & The Comment Section are delightfully funny, a throwback to those days of old when Billy Connolly and Jasper Carrott played folk music.

The songs are smart and witty: if Billy Bragg was less annoyed by the world and more amused by it, he might be Osborn. The Comment Section is just one man, John Hare, but he adds keyboards, accordion and, best of all, trumpet. With his musical nouse and Osborn’s clever songwriting they are gloriously entertaining.

Bath Not Bristol is wry and knowing, What Kind of Thing endearingly self-deprecating and Albert Went Out to See Rock Bands is as intimate, heartwarming and delightfully observed as Victoria Wood or Alan Bennett.

Gavin and the Comment Section combine clever humour and instrumentation to great effect – photo: Downend Folk and Roots

Equally good were Bryony Griffiths and Alice Jones. Unlike the weekend’s other acts, they haven’t played Downend before but were welcomed like homecoming heroes anyway.

As Yorkshire as a good strong cup of tea, Griffiths and Jones proved to be exceptional company. Every song had been collected from the White Rose county, each came with its own story and each was as honest, as real as only folk song can be.

Often singing unaccompanied, or with the minimal backing of fiddle, guitar and harmonium, Griffith and Jones harmonise exquisitely. The Girl Who Was Poorly Clad may have a desperate sadness at its core but was rapturously received. My Johnny Was a Shoemaker featured some plastic-trousered body percussion and The Grey Goose and Gander sparked a singalong.

If Downend is all about friendliness, the importance of community and some damn good stories sung wonderfully, it’s no wonder Griffith and Jones were able to fit right in.

Lady Maisery have a similar relationship with Downend. Over the years Hannah James, Hazel Askew and Rowan Rheingans have played here in so many different iterations that they were, really, the only band that could possibly bring the day to a close.

True to form, they were exactly what was required. Mainly playing songs from their most recent album Tender, Lady Maisery were as glorious as ever.

Although their own songs are lovely, Birdsong being a glorious evocation of freedom and song, it is three cover versions that tie the whole of their set together. Lal Waterson’s Child Among the Weeds is brim-full with delicious harmonies, Tracy Chapman’s 3000 Miles has an intensity built around a banjo and Rheingans’ incredible voice but Bjork’s Hyperballad is jaw dropping.

It is a cover that easily eclipses the original as James replaces Icelandic quirk with wide-eyed wonder. It is a song that makes your heart feel good.

Those hearts continued to feel good for the final day of this celebration. Sunday started with some local community action, took in Downend Folk’s first ever act, continued with Bristol’s finest folk choir and ended with morris dancing in the sunshine.

The first band to ever play Downend were Bright Season, the trio led by Michael Tinker. They haven’t really existed as a band for years, so this represented something pretty special.

Tinker, Ella Sprung and Simon Dumpleton are consummate musicians, weaving traditional songs and sea shanties around folk tunes from around the world. Sprung’s nyckelharpa is beautifully jaunty on a Danish jig, Tinker heart-wrenching on a darkly haunting version of Strange Fruit and Dumpleton helps bring something almost Lau-like to Arrival.

The unbridled pleasure they clearly got from being back in Downend was infectious: it was, after all, them that started this whole thing. They seemed to radiate a pride that we were all still here.

The festival’s Sunday started with litter picking and ended with morris dancing in the sunshine – photo: Downend Folk and Roots

Finally, the celebration was brought to a close by Heartwood Chorus, a choir that is becoming synonymous with celebration at Downend Folk & Roots.

In the past they have sung a handful of songs at a couple of Christmases so it was a pleasure to see them do a full set. Christ Church is the perfect venue for rejoicing with thirty voices and worshipping at the temple of song, and Heartwood were more than ready to play their part.

From traditional songs to contemporary folk classics, the choir raised the roof, voices in glorious harmony, a dynamic, overwhelming experience. The traditional Byker Hill sitting comfortably next to Bjork’s Cosmogony, Heartwood effortlessly showed that a great song is a great song regardless of where it comes from.

Bristol’s folk choir, Heartwood Chorus, filled the hall with glorious song – photo: Downend Folk and Roots

At a time when things can sometimes feel uncertain and unfriendly, Downend Folk & Roots has embodied everything that is good in the world over the last ten years. A welcoming community, a friendly face, a brilliant song, a wonderful singer – Downend gives us all of these things.

After ten years it continues to be one of the finest places in our city. This was the perfect celebration of a wonderful place.

Main photo: Barry Savell

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