Costa Festival Portugal

Hi all, Just got back from a fabulous week of music with the Costa Del Folk in Portugal. I'm attaching a copy of the programme, hoping it's readable here. In summary, we had 5 days of wall to wall music including workshops and performances.

The morning was basically for relxed workshops covering Singing Choir, Spoons foe beginners, Ukes (beginners and Intermediate) Song workshops (like circle of death) and and Ensemble of multi instruments. These resulted in a performance on the last day from all of these groups. In the early evening there was a 1 hr 'open mic' which was actually and 'open non-mic' i.e. acoustic only. A fair amount of this was a cappella as many people didn't bring instruments, but the standard was pretty high. I took a guitar as extra baggae and payed each night and also at a couple of the morning sessions.

The performing acts started at 11.30 each day with 2 or 3 acts on two stages, each for 40 minutes. Then in the afternoon and evening, on the main outdoor stage, there were a further 5 performances of 45 minutes or 1 hour each, with a break of only 15 minutes between except at 'tea/dinner time'.

There were a total of around 15 different performers, most doing 2 separate performances. Hard to pick out the best (for me) as there was so much variation but I'd list as standouts
-Ralph McTell, (2 programmes and a 'meet the performer session').
-Phil Beer on his own
-Steve Knightly on his own
-Track Dogs
-Show of hands, joined by Miranda Sykes, and to close the whole thing, Track Dogs, this session being absolutely stunning
-Merry Hell (great)
-Miranda Sykes on her own (exceptional)
Most others were also very good; didn't like 'Fistful of Spookies', although they brought the house down.

In the afternoon each day there was a 'meet the performer' session with a 45 minute interview with some of the big names, incuding Ralph McT, Phil Beer, Track Dogs.

Everything was outdoors, terrific weather and excellent venue. The hotel was exclusively for this event and, with day tickets also available, there were around 600-800 people there!

And for anyone with the stamina (not me!), 3 days had a late night caliedh from 11  to 12.30 followed by a further inpromptu session!

Back to the grindstone now, but we've already booked for next year (headline acts Fairport Convention, Midge Ure, Thea Gilmore, O'Hooley and Tidow, Ranagri) .


(The Company, 'Harmony Voyages', run about 6 events a year including river crusises (Richard Thompson) and 3 land-based prgrammes overseas and a couple in UK.

FFJ