Moseley Folk and Arts Festival, September 3rd - 5th

Soooooooooo good to be back at MoFo (or maybe that should be MoFAF now they've added the 'Arts' bit) after 6 years away. Regular readers (both of you) will know that we went to every single MoFo and MoJaFuSo when we were living in Bearwood but our move to Devon coupled with various financial and logistical issues...ahem...made it impossible for us to attend for the past few years. Of course no bugger could attend in 2020 but we'll gloss over that. 

I'm pleased to report that MoFAF's just as lovely as ever, a little bigger than when we were last there thanks to Folk On The Slope and Speakers Corner but all the better for it. We knew we'd enjoy old favourites (deep breath) The Wonderstuff, 

The Nightingales, 

Gruff Rhys, Frank Turner, Katherine Priddy, 

Pete Williams and Richard Hawley but there were plenty of new (to us at least) artists including Keeley Forsyth, Sinead O'Brien, Christie Reeves 

and Jade Bird 

that whet our musical whistles. 

Speakers Corner dished up Roy, Joe Lycett in conversation with Cold War Steve, Foka Wolf, 

Jess Phillips (the place was rammed for her appearance...time to step aside eh Kier?), Pete Paphides (with Brum cultural ambassador Lyle Bignon  and Boat To Row's Michael King) and Rich Hall and it could almost have been a festival on its own. Sadly Barbara Nice clashed with Pete Williams, one of a number of clashes that's just part of the deal with festivals. I'm sure the two of 'em would've made a great double act...hmmmm. 

Aside from the music and chat it was wonderful to catch up with so many dear old (and not so old) friends again and to make a few new ones too. Poignantly a couple were missing this time though, Brian Travers and Gaz Owen, but they both received the traditional MoFAF graffiti treatment (I spotted part of Paul Murphy's tribute image from waaaay back on the reverse of one of the walls of The Black Swan pop up pub too). 

Who knows what the next 12 months will bring (aren't we due a plague of frogs and the four horseman of the apocalypse next?) but I'm already counting down the days to MoFAF 2022. Suggestions? Oh go on then...try PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Black Midi, Dexys, Jeffrey Lewis, Elvis Costello, Robert Plant, The Lovely Eggs, Richard Dawson, Courtney Barnett, Sleaford Mods, Wildwood Kin, Du Blonde, Kae Tempest, Ezra Furman and Billy Nomates. That'll do for starters. 

PS: Huge thanks to all involved in organising, running and appearing at MoFAF, you made a middle aged man very happy.