“How wonderful to be here. I can't think of a better place to ease myself back in to this. Thank you. It's going to be a feat of memory."

And, with that, SAM SWEENEY picks up his violin and plays as though the last fifteen months have been the blink of an eye, as though the last time we'd seen friends was a few days ago, as though the world really might get back to normal.

Let's face it, this could have been a strange night. The first Downend Folk Club for a long time, only 60 people in a pew-less church, no bar and still that familiar “keep your distance” feeling. It could have been strange but Sam Sweeney is the perfect host to banish the weirdness. He's on fine form. Telling stories and odd little anecdotes (the one about Fairport's Dave Swarbrick and dead skin cells will live long in the memory!), he's desperate for a chat and grinning all over his face. There’s a delirious, infectious happiness beaming from the stage. Is this what we've missed? A musician just beside themselves with joy to be playing again?

Early on Sam confesses that he's only really played properly solo three or four times in his life (away from Bellowhead, Leveret, Kerfuffle and countless others). He worries that just listening to solo fiddle is a bit “intense" over a whole gig. This isn't intense though, it's sublime. It's glorious. It's beautiful.

Tune after tune flit by. Some are familiar – a fabulous Bagpipers brings actual cheers from the 60 – some are different versions of old tunes and some are newly unearthed. Almost all of them end with an “oh, I love that one" and another huge grin. Sam is like the kid who’s been waiting for AGES to show you all of his best toys. At one point he says he's “brimming with new tunes" and, you know what, that's exactly it. He can't contain himself. He's just so excited.

For all that there's no Bellowhead-esque leaping around, no frantic sawing away whilst pogoing. This is a set of exquisite, gentle, sensitive wordless songs. It's hard to write about Sam Sweeney's playing without reaching for the bird metaphors but notes really do soar, his playing is feather like, delicate. Things take flight and glide, effortlessly, around this lovely room. The two tunes from his extraordinary Made in the Great War project are perfect –  battlefield elegies played with grace – and only overshadowed by some sumptuous tunes from the new Unearth Repeat album, one he released just before lockdown so has never played them in front of a “real" audience before. You'd never know it, they're simply delightful. The Rising of the Lark, from The Unfinished Violin, is especially bright and cheery, just right for a damp May evening. Just right to coax us back to live music.

As the evening draws to a close Sam Sweeney bounces in his chair, grins, sticks a thumb in air and says “I can't express how much I love this".

He's not the only one. We all love it too. I've missed this...

Words: Gavin McNamara
Photo: Chris Dobson

NEXT AT DOWNEND FOLK CLUB: SAM SWEENEY IN CONCERT

We are completely thrilled to be returning to in-venue concerts in May, and equally thrilled to welcome SAM SWEENEY as our guest. Sam will perform a rare solo gig in the beautiful surroundings of CHRIST CHURCH DOWNEND on Friday 21st May in front of a COVID-safe and socially-distanced audience of 60. The concert is already SOLD OUT, but Sam will also feature in the new-look "an hour or so" a couple of days later, on the Sunday evening.

Nominated four times, and winner in 2015, of Musician Of The Year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Sam is a veteran of the mighty 11-piece, former and inaugural artistic director of the NATIONAL YOUTH FOLK ENSEMBLE, founder member of the acclaimed instrumental trio LEVERET, and "one of the defining English fiddle players of his generation" (Mark Radcliffe) at the forefront of the revival in English traditional music.

The concert will take place at CHRIST CHURCH DOWNEND on Friday 21st May 2021. Doors open at 7.30pm for a 7.45pm start. Please note that some of the things you're used to at Downend Folk Club will not be available at these concerts. There will be no bar, so you are invited to bring your own refreshments and take the debris away with you afterwards. There will also be no raffle. Finally, there won't be a support act at these events so they'll likely finish a little earlier than pre-pandemic. We will, of course, hope to re-instate these things if and when we're able to. You will need to bring a face-mask and your own hand-sanitiser. There are toilets but access is limited... so please try to go before you arrive!

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NEXT AT DOWNEND FOLK CLUB ONLINE: AN HOUR OR SO WITH SAM SWEENEY

As part of our plan moving forward, we will also be sitting down for a cuppa and a bit of a natter with SAM SWEENEY when he visits us for the concert, as we continue with our hugely successful "an hour or so" online series in a slightly different way.

Your questions are invited but they must be submitted in advance... you can do that via email, Facebook message, Twitter, however you like. We'll select the best ones and put them to Sam, as well as finding out a bit more about his past and his plans for the future. We'll film a handful of the tunes Sam plays during the concert and stitch them together.

We'll then stream the resulting chat and tunes on Sunday 23rd May 2021, at 8.00pm on our FACEBOOK page and YOUTUBE channel. Do make sure that you've liked/followed/suscribed! We'll all be hanging out in the comments as we have for the last year, so we hope that, if you're one of our friends from further afield, or you're not ready to come back to in-venue gigs at the moment, you'll join us and continue to build the lovely online community that has formed around these events. But if you can't join us live, don't worry... it will be available to view for two weeks afterwards.

As always, these events are free to attend, but we will continue with an online tip-jar, which you can find via the link below. This will be treated as extra ticket money, so will directly benefit the artist. Please give generously if you can.

We'll continue these new monthly "an hour or so" sessions as long as people are watching and donating!