Loes & The Celtic Link from Prague to Westport (and Back) #3: Wickets, Wonderwall & Where's My Sausage?!

What the Dutch and Czechs have in common: we are frugal

On Monday 26 May at 6 a.m. local time, "Don’t Worry, Be Happy" (Stena Line's alarm clock jingle) was literally a wake-up call: the ferry arrived in Harwich, time to get up! We were looking at a few days off in and around the town of Poole, Dorset. A look at the map posed a dilemma: it's only a small detour to Stonehenge, but is that heap of stones worth the €30 entrance fee? After all, we saw dolmens in the Netherlands last week… A quick search on forums showed that most users find Stonehenge an "underwhelming experience" and mention the stone circle in nearby Avebury as a good (and free) alternative, so we followed that advice. 

… and we are not made of sugar

After having had beautiful weather for the first two weeks on tour, it started pouring down on Tuesday, May 27th. That did not stop us from grabbing our raincoats and taking a walk along the beach and through the historic city centre. We also played a few games of pool (we are in Poole after all) in the Pottery café. The English version of pool billiards is challenging: both the balls and the pockets are smaller than we are used to in the international version. It kept us off the street for hours!

Jurassic Coast and Old Harry Rocks

The next day the sun was shining again, so we decided to take the ferry from Sandbanks to Shell Bay and walk along the Jurassic Coast to Swanage. The limestone formations called Old Harry Rocks are, in our opinion, on par with the higher and more famous Cliffs of Moher in Ireland and I can well imagine that this is a favourite holiday destination for many Brits. After a drink at the (absolutely rightly) nationally famous and very busy pub Square and Compass, we took the double-decker bus back to Poole. It was a wild rollercoaster ride in which quite a few trees were trimmed along the way by simply ramming the bus through them. To our surprise, this adventure only cost a few pounds: a good alternative to a theme park!

Compatriots in unexpected places

Honza and I speak Czech to each other on a daily basis and when we're abroad, we tend to assume that this is our secret language that no one can understand. So we were quite surprised when the owners of Crusty Bread Artisan Bakery spoke Czech to us when they served our food. Marcel and his wife Martina are lovely people who make the best coffee we have tasted on this tour. They are originally from Nový Jičín, lived in the United States for a long time and eventually settled in England. To stay in this theme: the next day after our performance I got talking to a woman from the "little white city" of Thorn, not far from where I grew up in the province of Limburg and a place I definitely have to show Honza on our next visit to the Netherlands. It’s a small world!

The Big Freezone: a piece of paradise hidden in the woods

We got our next engagement with the help of Rob Clamp, whom we first met in 2022 during Sofia Singer-Songwriter Fest in Bulgaria and have been good friends with ever since. In 2022, Rob won the first prize and I came in second; in 2023, the "Dutch nightingale" Nina Lynn also won a prize. Rob is a very professional and charming singer-songwriter with a voice reminiscent of Jason Isbell and a very unique style of guitar playing with elements of fingerstyle and slap.

The festival The Big Freezone, where both we and Rob got to play a set, was hidden somewhere in the middle of a forest near Wimborne-Minster in Dorset. Imagine a cross between a yoga retreat, a garden party, and a miniature version of Glastonbury. Or, as the organizers describe it themselves on their website: "a tapestry of music and wellness, interwoven with eco-conscious practices and a commitment to social responsibility." Drugs and alcohol are prohibited and all visitors bring their own plates and cutlery to minimize waste. One doesn't get a chance to get away from the rat race and consumer society that often, so it was literally a breath of fresh air.

Go Hawks!

The next day, Rob and his parents took us to a Hampshire Hawks vs Essex cricket match in the Utilita stadium. It doesn't get more British than that! It was the first live sports event I ever attended and I can now proudly say that I have a basic understanding of the rules. A few impressions:

• Unlike football, a cricket match is a family-friendly experience;
• The word "wicket" is something like "smurf" and can mean several things;
• Traditional cricket lasts for 5 full days, T20 is the flashier version that lasts 3 hours;
• It is just as interesting to watch the "batters" (who hit) as the "bowlers" (who throw) and the "fielders" (who catch);
• A cricket ball is rock hard and the players in the field are expected to catch it with their bare hands. So it is not a game for musicians…

The Brian Boru

On Saturday 31st May, we drove north with Rob for a double bill at England's oldest Irish club: The Brian Boru in Ashton-in-Makerfield, a small town between Liverpool and Manchester. The difference between a club and a pub is the emphasis on community. The Brian Boru was founded in 1889 by a group of Irish migrants who had crossed the sea in search of work. Today, the club is mainly a meeting place for 2nd and 3rd-generation Irish in England. It was therefore no surprise that our Irish repertoire was particularly well received here!

Celtic Connections in Liverpool

Sunday morning we said goodbye to Rob, Honza had his first scone with clotted cream in a tea room, and we only had to drive a short distance to Liverpool. There we had arranged to meet piper/flutist Ellen McGovern and multi-instrumentalist Ben Truman, two very talented musicians that Honza had met at Glasgow's festival Celtic Connections earlier this year. We had spent a day in Liverpool on vacation three years ago, but it is a completely different experience when locals show you around. Without Ellen and Ben, we would never have discovered the famous urinals of The Philharmonic Dining Room (which women are also allowed to look at if they knock politely beforehand), or the trendy pub-in-a-church St. Peter's Tavern.

The Green Man session

Liverpool is a real music city and you can feel that every step you take. They milk their Beatles past to the fullest, almost every pub has a working musician playing "Wonderwall" and if you walk around with an instrument on your back, curious passers-by will stop to ask you all about it. There are regular Irish/Scottish trad sessions most days of the week. Ellen and Ben lead two of these sessions: on Sundays in The Green Man on Lark Lane and on Tuesdays in The Red Lion on Slater Street. We attended the session in The Green Man. This session is friendly and inclusive, although they draw the line at 4 bodhráns (phew!). They can cause quite a stir, especially when they enthusiastically stomp along to the beat. At one point I heard "CLONK!" and saw the bodhrán player rubbing his hair and the violinist inspecting his instrument. It turned out that a burning candle had bounced off a table and the wax splattered all over the bodhránist's head, the violin, and my guitar case. Honza and I found this a bit shocking, but everyone else carried on playing as if this was a regular thing. Afterwards, we heard that indeed not a session goes by without a candle or a pint bouncing off a table: Ellen and Ben even immortalized one of these moments by composing a tune called "Wax on Eamon".

The Monday Club

On Rob's recommendation, we went to The Monday Club, an open mic at the legendary Cavern Pub (there's the Beatles again) on Matthew Street, which has been run by Ian Prowse weekly for 14 years. It was packed and the standard was very high, so we were happy that people responded well to our short set and quite a few people came to ask for a business card afterwards. The volume and tempo were also high: the speakers blasted every time someone plugged or unplugged a guitar cable, but nobody seemed to be bothered. The only rule of The Monday Club is that it's original material only; no problem! This made it a highly varied and high-speed showcase,  interesting enough for us to stay until the end. Young and old, male and female, from sensitive ballads to punk and poetry, there was a bit of everything and the atmosphere was excellent. One moment, you have the whole crowd roaring Where's My Fucking Sausage, You Bastard?! with Barry Jones, who plays his local hit "Hide the Sausage" at the Monday Club every week; the next, poets emotionally poured out their thoughts on Gaza and the car attack on Liverpool football supporters that happened only a week ago.

Next stop: Ireland!

At the time of writing, we are on the ferry from Liverpool to Belfast, looking forward to playing some gigs there:

• June 5th, Sunflower Folk Club, Belfast 
• June 6th, Galway Folk Festival, Galway
• June 7th, Peacock Lane, Ballisodare, Sligo
• June 8th, Westport Folk & Bluegrass Festival, Westport, Mayo

Perhaps we will see you at one of those performances, or we will just meet you back here on Insounder in a week for the next episode!