Back at Bingham Folk Club

Lets wind the clock back a little and tell you about last Friday night- what a great time we had with everyone at Bingham Folk Club.

This is such a warm and friendly club and it was great to be back playing for them again! Tickets were sold out long before the actual date so apologies to all those who wanted to come along and couldn't this time.

We thoroughly enjoyed everyone who sang and played for us before our first set- Dave Smith, Marion Downs and Al Harris gave us a fantastic start to the evening.

Being the 11.11.22 there were some songs to reflect the date and we decided to do one which we'd never performed before, Eric Bogle's very poignant All The Fine Young Men and we paired that with our version of Hector The Hero which we play as a slow lament.

In fact, we did a few songs which were Folk Club Firsts for us including our own song, Dr Syn, written by Helen and based on a poem by her good friend Nick Weekes with the tune coming from Patrick. Watch out for this one popping up in our sets!

The Scottish contingent of lads at the back of the room were especially happy that we were including songs like 'A Parcel of Rogues' and 'Sober Men' in the set as we approach St Andrew's Night at the end of November and the evening flowed along very smoothly- well, in the main.

There was a little thing that happened in the first set...

I have to say that I had been feeling very happy with myself because a flight case I'd ordered had finally arrived from Germany. I'd always planned to have a go at kitting it out with foam and material lining myself in a foolish fit of feelings of adequacy. Don't ask me where they came from but Thursday evening I decided to tackle the job and I was so pleased with the results! It's not perfect but it looks good and is such a better fit for the accordion.

You're probably wondering what this has to do with Friday night (apart from an opportunity to show off!) well we were getting towards the very end of the first set when I had a slight feeling of wooziness and the thought went through my mind that there was a strong smell of glue where I was sitting. Trying to be subtle, I was glancing around me wondering where this was coming from until I realised that it was, literally, right under my nose! Not only did the instrument I'd been playing for the last half hour smell strongly of it but the flight case which was at my feet being used as a stand was emitting an Eau de Adhesive aroma from all the contact adhesive I'd used to attach the shiny new lining!!

Don't look too closely at my eyes in these photos from the night

A big thank you to Mick Herring for taking some great photos of us and his permission to use them. And a big thankyou to Dave Downs for use of his PA and for being our sound engineer for the night.

Nottingham Global Roots Festival

A couple of weeks ago we took part in a very special event. The Nottingham Global Roots Festival held at Stonebridge City Farm was a huge success and much credit goes to the two inspirational women who had the belief and the energy to pull this festival together and bring the community out in droves to celebrate different cultures through their music and live performance.

Nottingham Global Roots Festival was founded by Rastarella Falade in 2015 and has grown in strength and popularity ever since. The festival is now led by female co-ordinators Rastarella Falade and Jude Winwood.

The day was packed with amazing musicians and artists and was appreciated by a very sizeable audience! It was great to meet Reece from Eaton Mills Photography who was on hand as the day’s official photographer and he has kindly shared his work with us for this post alongside some photos taken on our own camera.

Stonebridge City Farm was the ideal location for the festival as both the festival and the farm share such a strong commitment to the people of the local community. There was a fantastic atmosphere with all ages enjoying the activities, the sunshine and the music as we played for dancers of all ages who took to the grassy spaces available in front of the band to move their feet to some jigs and reels!

It was an absolute pleasure to play for the Nottingham Global Roots Festival- keep your eyes on our diary dates for December as there are plans in process for a December event! Don’t worry, it will be indoors this time.

In the meantime, lets leave you with more amazing memories of the day captured in wonderful photographs…

Thank you to our sound engineer, Nigel Christie, for giving us and all the other musicians such a great sound through the PA!

CeltFest 2022

Hard to believe that it’s all over for another year but CeltFest 2022 was an amazing way to end a brilliant VicFest 2022!

Over five weekends at the wonderful Victoria Hotel in Beeston, just outside of Nottingham, The Hands On Pub Company in conjunction with Kellys Heroes hosted twenty different acts covering genres including Folk Music, Latin American, Reggae, Bluegrass, Blues, Singer Songwriters and, of course, Irish music.

The festival was our first VicFest since 2019 and the first one without the guidance of Neil Kelso, the man with the vision of a Live Music festival which would be free of charge but would be interwoven with ways to raise money for charity from donations/ tombola/ raffles/auctions/ ticketed food events and more!

Neil organised over two decades worth of festivals and gigs as The Vic’s owner and landlord before he passed away but his love of music has left us the legacy of a festival which is close to our hearts and a charity which has benefitted from people’s generosity. The John Van Geest Cancer Research Project is an internationally renowned charity focusing on cancer research into diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment and all proceeds from VicFest go towards supporting them.

With the enthusiasm, vision and support of Linda and Hannah, Neil’s family, and the incredible staff of The Victoria, this year’s VicFest took place over the hottest summer since 1976. Temperatures nudged the mercury higher and higher until it peaked at 39 degrees outdoors and behind the bars and in the kitchens it was sweltering! Thankfully the marquee sheltered us all from the ferocious heat and we were even grateful for the breeze that rolled down the train tracks, moving the heated air away for a moment or two.

Through it all, VicFest 2022 was an even bigger affair than ever before with an additional weekend of bands bringing the total number of live acts to twenty- and for the first time Kellys incorporated CeltFest into the event as well!

CeltFest 2022 was a mixture of Kellys Heroes playing a more traditional side of Irish music before we branched out with something slightly different for this year. Neil Kelso was such a lover of the music of Van Morrison that we wanted to represent it in the festival but our budget doesn’t quite stretch to those lengths so we invited our friend, Iain Sparks, to come along and perform his Van the Man show.
We knew he would keep the audience up and dancing!

The CeltFest craic began with people dancing to the Jigs and Reels of Kellys, while their sets were laced with ballads plus plenty of songs to sing along with- and sing along you did!!

As early evening sneaked up on us Iain Sparks began to regale listeners with the songs of Van Morrison and impress everyone, not just with his amazing voice, but with his expertise on guitar too before wowing everyone with some very impressive harmonica playing!
Iain duly obliged towards the end of his set as people threw requests at him and so everyone danced and sang to favourites by Roy Orbison, Mick Hucknall and many others until he came back for an encore, joining everyone on the dance floor as he sang Elvis Costello’s Oliver’s Army…

This year’s festival is barely done and we are already making plans and discussing ideas for the summer of 2023 but just for now we’ll leave you with a little reminder of 2022 and the fun we had.

A huge thank you to all of you who came along and supported the festival. We can’t wait to see you again soon. Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbours and lets KEEP MUSIC LIVE!

Amber Valley Beer and Cider Festival 2022

We want to give a shout out to all the organisers of the Amber Valley Beer and Cider Festival- we had a brilliant time and what a lovely bunch you all are!

Thanks to everyone who came and danced the night away with Kellys Heroes and then The Modska's- and what great fellas they are too. A special thanks to Chris for letting us tap into their PA and to Andrew for snapping a few photos while we were up on stage.

It's always great to see old friends again and there were a few unexpected faces who made the trip to join us in Belper last night. It didn't take much for them and many others to be up and out of their seats, swinging each other around the dance floor, and not a drop of drink spilled.

It was great to have the chance to watch and listen to The Modska’s once our set was finished and I even managed to grab some photos of them in action.

Goodbye to March 2022- we've had a blast!

What an incredible time we've had right through the month of March. It's been such a busy, amazing time for the band and it felt like our feet barely touched the ground between gigs. From all the sold out ticketed events to the open door and open air gigs it's been an absolute pleasure to be playing for you all again

April kicks off for us this Saturday afternoon with a charity event in Shardlow supporting the crew of a narrowboat who will soon be taking their boat across the Irish Sea- and that's NOT an April Fools joke!! (check out our Live Page for all the details).

Next week we'll be on the road heading north and playing some new venues for us-

The Storey, Lancaster Friday 8th April 8pm

https://www.lancaster.gov.uk/sites/the-storey/what-s-on

The Puzzle Hall Inn, Sowerby Bridge Sunday 10th April 6pm

https://www.puzzlehall.org.uk/

These are both open gigs so if you're around then please come over and see us . Full details are on our Live Page.

But for now, here's a little look back across some fantastic memories from March 2022!

Sláinte!

Kellys Heroes are on Bandcamp!

We’ve been working on a little project recently and now it’s out there for you all to take a listen to!
Over the last couple of months we have taken the original DAT tape recordings from the first five Kellys Heroes albums and digitally remastered them. It’s been a joy and a massive nostalgia trip to hear these songs and sets of tunes again and to hear the voices and the playing of old members of the band once more, especially those we have lost.

I’m sure that for those of you who have been with the band since those early days this is going to bring back some fantastic memories of amazing times and brilliant gigs and for those of you who have joined us along the way you can get a musical snapshot of how this epic journey all began.

You can take a listen to individual tracks and the albums are also available to buy and download so you can listen to them at your leisure!
Go across to https://kellysheroes2.bandcamp.com and you’ll find the following albums…

A Hungry Feeling
Seldom Sober
No Problem
Hard Life
That’s The Story

Kellys Heroes, Nottinghaminfo@kellysheroes.co.uk
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