8th July, 2021 - The day finally arrived and we packed the car with guitars, mics, leads, pedals, cd's, stage clothes, then headed off to play at the New Forest Folk Festival! Stopping over at the Shoe Inn, Plaitford, quite literally a stone's throw from the arena, we arrived on the Friday morning, feeling bright eyed and raring to go. Booked in, temperature taken, lateral flow tests done, we were feeling good and the sun was shining too.
After loading our gear onto the stage, we had a quick line check, Carolyn strumming her acoustic, Derek riffing on bass and Mark on acoustic, then a couple of one, two's on the mic and with a spare few minutes we waited for our introduction. Ladies and gentlemen I give you Red Shoes . . . .
Kicking off with "The Well", it felt good, the sound was great, the whole crowd were with us and as we fired up song after song there was a definite air of . . . . this is how it should be! "Colours", "Celtic Moon", "House of Cards" . . . one by one the tunes came and went. Then with the last two songs, the T.Rex classic "Ride a White Swan" and "Swansong" we asked the wonderfully talented Marion Fleetwood to join us on fiddle. What a blast we had! A fabulous crowd reaction, dancing, singing, cheering . . . . those 18 months of being away due to Corona just faded away in that hour, it was exhilirating.
We'd like to thank everyone who came up and chatted with us, people who bought our albums at the Merch Tent and Nick Curtis and his team at New Forest Folk Festival. So onwards and upwards and onto the next one in a few weeks time, see you soon folks!