Circulus / The Burdock Band @ Moseley All Services Club, Friday 16th December

So where do you stand on the whole ceilidh thing then eh? I guess that might depend on how many glasses of egg nog / Christmas ale you’ve consumed. For the uninitiated a ceilidh’s a bit of a knees up, involving a bit of the old folk dancing thing (you know, all that taking your partners by the hand dosey-doe business). Whilst some folk are born to dance others aren’t, but at least folk dancing offers those of us with a complete lack of rhythm the chance to get on down whilst looking marginally less stoopid than we normally do, mainly because everyone else is too busy flailing around merrily to notice that you’ve just tripped over your feet/the floor/thin air...again. Tonight The Burdock Band do a fine job of getting this particular ceilidh started, geeing up the surprisingly unreserved crowd (brave souls...it took me a while to pluck up the courage to get up there) and unthawing those parts of the body deep frozen by the wind and sleet and it would be a churlish man indeed to deny the sheer joy of partying like it’s 1599.

Speaking of which, psychedelic medieval folk rock anyone? Yes, verily my lieges Circulus are hereth to geteth on downeth with the kind of tunes that Joan of Arc might’ve shaken a slightly singed tail feather to. Lead by Michael Tyack who, I think it’s safe to say, pretty much exists in his own fantasy world of elves and pixies (beats reality I guess), Circulus are a truly unique proposition. Briefly semi-famous for a while (somewhat bizarrely earning them a two page feature in NME) they’re now over ten years into their career, although they’ve had more members than I’ve had pints of scrumpy. Tonight they were down to a duo, Tyack and a lady on cello/fiddle, but that didn’t stop them from laying down an impressive series of acid tinged folk bangers with Tyack on particularly fine fretwork fondling form. “Wow, almost the end of the world – marvellous...2012 folks!” he announced midway through the set, referring to yet another one of those end of days predictions. He actually seemed pretty excited by the whole prospect to be honest, can’t say I blame him really. Set highlight was a flutetastic version of My Body Is made Of Sunlight, as poppy as the band gets, and a delightful 17th century tale of the Thames freezing over and having holes melted into it by women’s buttocks...which policemen then fell in to...the holes that is...not the buttocks. Quite what these women were doing with their buttocks out Tyack failed to explain but I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation. Maybe all will be explained in his forthcoming film about ‘energy lines’. There’s a preview at his house this Tuesday evening if you fancy it. He invited all of us along so I’m sure he wouldn’t find a few more people turning up.

After Circulus had done their thing The Burdock Band came back for some more ceilidh madness and only the necessity of having to catch the last bus home dragged me away from it all. Well, that and the fact that I was knackered after just one dance but we’ll gloss over that eh?