We are regulars at these country nights. Having recently moved to Bilston Town Hall I have decided that the drive there and back is so much better for us. It's a better venue all round. However Saturday night did not quite go to plan.
We arrived just as organiser Patricia Swindells was rushing out of the door. She needed to go and get some different speakers as the amp had blown one of them during sound check. Hence the evening's entertainment started about 45 minutes late. That gave us time to have one of the freshly made ham and tomato rolls that were on offer.
So once all the speakers were plugged in and the mic taped into position as it was too big for the clip on the mic stand, Adam John opened the night.
This was the first time we had caught a performance from Adam. I enjoyed it too. He felt a bit lonely up on that stage I think as he explained he was more used to fronting a band but even though he was a bit flustered because of the previous sound problems (who wouldn't be?) he delivered a very nice set.
With hardly a break in between Nashville artist Shantell Ogden was the second artist to perform.
We had seen Shantell perform once before at FSA Fest in 2017 and she remembered us. Wow. That was amazing. She sang some of her most popular songs and some brand new ones and told us some lovely stories. All in all a lovely set.
After Shantell's set there was a break so that the sound could be further fine tuned as one of the speakers had a bit of a crackle. It was during this break that unfortunately Adam had to rush off before we got the chance to tell him how much we enjoyed his set as one of his children had taken poorly.
The final artist of the evening was also celebrating his 70th birthday. Pete Boddis has been singing and playing guitar in various bands for over 50 years and on this occasion organiser and long time friend of Pete's, Jim Duncan had set up a slide show of photographs that were projected onto a screen behind the performers on the stage. They bought back some memories for Pete who told us about what was going on in some of the photos. He also did a lovely set with his bright orange guitar.
The next songwriters night is Saturday 19th October.
All photos credited to Ian Morrall (Shades Photography)