Banjos in the Bog - music and beer at Dent (1)

Date: 02 July 2011 00:40:50

We were at Dent for the the very wonderful Dentdale Music and Beer Festival, and it was wet. (As usual click on any of the little pictures for links to larger ones) So after our bracing morning stroll we went into the Sun at about 1.30 for a quick pint before going back to the muddy festival site. The pub was pretty packed, and there was a singing session in a side room that was too crowded for the seven of us to fit in to, to we hovered in the back room while a family ate their lunch and then grabbed their table. Narrowly beating a rather subdued set of young women out on a hen do to the chairs. Though their attention was later taken up by a much less subdued set of scousers out on an unrelated stag do which seemed to involve wearing silly clothes and often pyjamas. It was fun, ands the cheap and wonderful chips were cheap and wonderful but we missed the music and felt vaguely guilty about not seeing the bands in the festival field. So Adam set off in the rain to explore the mud. Meanwhile, sometime between 3 and 4pm this bloke called Dave came and started playing the fiddle...

He missed his guitar player so Mark and Martin went back to our tents to get theirs. Then a banjo player arrived, quickly followed by two more guitarists anyway, so our brave explorers work was unneeded. But when Martin and Mark got back and settled in and led the beer song (a Cunning Plan of Mark's which worked) but - as you can see - the table was getting a bit crowded and the scouser stags a little loud

so some musicians went out the back for a quick fag and some space (

And more musicians walked in from the back:

The fiddler is Mikey Kenny (Ottersgear) who played wonderfully that night & I think the very damp-looking woman might be Sally of the Kitchen Drinkers who sang on the stage the next day. And yes, that bloke from St. Helens smoking a fag by the wall really is wearing pyjamas. Dent did what it said on the tin - we had music and we had beer. Lots and lots of both,

And when it rained they sheltered in the toilets. Wonderful resonance! Shall they be called Banjos in the Bog? Or WC Fields and the Toilet Band?

And there was another session in the back garden - by 9 or 10pm there was music in the side room of the pub, music in the back room, music in the smoking area by the bogs, and music in the car park. We never got to see the festival stage that evening.