Late report this week but we'll start off with last Saturday night at Hoppy's Hillbilly Hoedown. I got told off by Hoppy for calling it a festival so a 'hoedown' is the correct term. We humped the gear up the great big iron fire escape & set up on the stage that slopes forward, plugged into the dodgy electric that cracks & pops every now & then... am I selling it well? Well, let me go on to say that this has to go down as one of the best hoedowns (mini festival) in the North of England. Fantastic turn out saw us playing to a full room. This venue is good for sound which was just as well cos we turned it up a bit. We played our 3 sets which included Tulsa Time, Aching Heart, Sweet Home Alabama, That old Train & Tony's self penned Easy Street & Out of my Mind. Also during the second set we did a new song to us as it had been requested 2 weeks before so we learnt it, the Steve Goodman song City of New Orleans which most people associate with Willie Nelson & why not, I personally think he did a great job of it...  we didn't do it too bad either for the first time. Hoppy has booked us for a return next year where it will be the 10th anniversary of Hoppy's Hillbilly Hoedown (festival!).

Thursday evening & we were heading up to Barnard Castle for the 20th Great North Festival. Now this is a festival, a flipping large one at that. We watched Los Yobos play the opening set of traditional old time country with a hint of Americana thrown in. We then took to the stage & played a rousing 1hr 10 min set which included mostly upbeat songs. The set seemed to fly by & we were soon playing our encore of Riders in the Sky - much to the delight of the 3 million cowboys in the marquee (thats a 'big tent' to us normal folk). Johnny Ringo was 'compere extrodinaire' & the sound crew were fabulous. Everybody we knew in the whole world seemed to be in this place to watch us bounce around the stage. We thank John Tallon for booking us, hope to be there again next year.

Next weekend will see us venture to Skipton Iron Horse Club & then Sapcote Festival.

keep safe...

Wrangler