I finally did it. Having fully intended to go visit the Lymington Folk Club real soon for a lot of this year and so having made arrangements with a mate for Christmas drinkies, we decided to chance our arm at some live culture. No, not the sort of thing you get in yoghurt nowadays. So off to the Thomas Tripp we erm, tripped.
It was billed as the Christmas bash where every offering had to be Christmas related. Now I don’t know about you, but at such a time stuffed full of traditional, and stuffing filled with Thyme, I don’t mind the annual trotting out of standards. Seems that everyone is trying to be edgy and ironic which doesn’t exactly help the sing-along aspect of a lot of traditional songs. Of course when I say traditional songs that includes Santa Claus is Coming to Town and it’s ilk.
So when it was announced at one point that the performer wasn’t going to do the obvious choice of songs, I have to confess to feeling a tad deflated. It’s not like I was expecting All Around my Hat, but I was hoping to exercise the vocal chords to some degree. As it turned out the song that followed was the Fairytale of New York, though the Christy Moore one, not the Pogues version. And a decent fist was made of it as well, though to my mind it’s become something of a Christmas standard in it’s own right.
Enough of the high-falutin music discourse, the evening was about enjoying yourself and aided by the Ringwood Brewery, we did just that. An added bonus was that having walked into the bar at the start we met our friend Mr Jim Anderson, accordion player extraordinaire, who not only got the first round in, but was shortly afterwards up on stage exercising his superb accordion stylings. In theory it was a Christmas medley, but so many tunes were included so quickly perhaps a Christmas mash-up would be a better description. For me one of the highlights of the evening.
Now if I were any kind of a diligent reviewer I would have taken note of all the performers and therefore been able to steer you on their relative merits. However the convivial atmosphere and the assistance of Messrs Ringwood meant that I can’t do that. Oh well. However I did particularly like the band with the young bloke playing the ukulele banjo. I like ukuleles, I like Christmas. What’s not to like.
What I can do is recommend the Lymington Folk Club as a good way to spend an evening. If the Christmas bash is representative of their regulkar meetings, then don’t wait until the evening is due to start to turn up. The seats will all be gone and you’ll have to stand at the back. There are worse things to have to do but I’m just saying.
Finally I can only wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It’s not Folk, but it’s my Christmas song for this year. A wonderful Reggae track from the Maytals. Apologies for the advert at the start.


