The Folklore Festival was held in 2012 for the first time but due to disappointing ticket sales it has not taken place again since.
Saturday:
Van Morrison
Nouvelle Vague
Lee Scratch Perry
Jake Bugg
Rick Jones
Wanda Jackson
Sunday:
Ray Davies
Joan Armatrading
Rodriguez
Badly Drawn Boy
Finley Quaye
But the event, which was previously held at The People’s Park, is making a comeback and is due to take place this year on Sunday 14 June at Val de la Mare in St Peter, where the Grassroots festival used to be held.
Organisers Warren Holt and Warren Le Sueur – the team behind Jersey Live – have been working to bring Folklore back since 2012 and have already secured the headlining act for this year’s event.
However they would not reveal details of the headline act just yet.
Mr Le Sueur said: ‘We have a headlining act confirmed and we have updated the owners of the site about our plans.
‘By moving the site we are making the feel of it a bit different but the values will still remain the same.
‘The festival will be on a Sunday, which I think will be for the best.
‘St Ouen’s Bay gets very busy on a Sunday afternoon so we are hoping to attract people from there.’
The aim of this year’s Folklore Festival, he added, was a ‘modest-sized’ event, with a relaxed and ‘French-style’ atmosphere.
Both Mr Holt and Mr Le Sueur are still in discussions about other acts that will perform at the event, and will also be meeting with Jersey’s Bailiff to discuss plans.
‘It will be a nice alternative to Jersey Live and we will have a great show for everyone,’ Mr Le Sueur said.
Around 5,000 people attended the 2012 event, which was held over two days. The acts that performed included Van Morrison, Ray Davies, Joan Armatrading and Finley Quaye.
THOSE who appreciate artists who bear their soul on stage – or at the least share their pleasure at being in Jersey (or Dublin, as a geographically challenged Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry had said during his set) – would have been disappointed with Van The Man.
Hidden under a black hat and dark glasses and squeezed into a single-breasted suit, the 66-year-old barely muttered a ‘thank you’ and spent large parts of his set in the shadows as his talented band stepped up to perform their solos.
But with Belfast’s famous son, it doesn’t matter … not in the slightest.
In fact, Van Morrison has a deserved reputation for his no-nonsense approach to performing live: he doesn’t court his fans; he lets the music do the talking.
And for an hour and a half on Saturday evening the Folklore festival-goers were treated to a pulsating, intense, relentless series of wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor hits from his 40-plus-year back-catalogue.
At times the tempo was as high as the giant big-top covering the People’s Park, at times it was moody and bluesy, at others soulful and slow.
One constant was the beautiful delivery of each and every number, from the opening Brown-Eyed Girl to Here Comes the Night, to Days Like This, to Jackie Wilson Said to the thumping final song, Gloria.
Through each and every one of them, Van stood in the centre of his band, sometimes blasting tunes from his saxophone, other times stretching the limits of his harmonica or singing with his hands clenched, neck tight – his powerful voice filling every fold of the giant tent.
Often his seven-piece band would take it in turns to step up to the proverbial plate – playing double-bass, piano, drum, guitar, trombone or saxophone – but you could tell who was in charge.
Turning to each performer as they played, Van – usually having stepped out of the spotlight – would conduct them without need of waving his arms; it seemed a quick word, nod or raised hand was enough to bring a solo to a halt or extend it further.
With maybe five or six seconds between songs, they came and came and came – Bright Side of the Road, I Can’t Stop Loving You, The Way Young Lovers Do, a cover of Peggy Lee’s You Give Me Fever, That’s Entertainment and Have I Told You Lately.
There were a lot more. Among such foot-stomping tunes, one could forget that Van Morrison writes such beautiful lyrics, but the venue was small enough for them to find their place alongside the notes.
And then there was the finale – Gloria. Glorious. With the crowd stirred up into a frenzy, Van – never one to grandstand – walked off stage yet his band played on … for so long that Van could have been tucked up in his hotel bed before the final massive end.
The crowd went home satisfied.
In 2013, Folklore Festival organisers had to cancel their second annual event, citing a lack of support from the States
The Tourism Development Fund advisory panel said that they wanted to support the alternative music festival but may have been taking a ‘risk’ had they backed it.
They claimed that the festival organisers did not give adequate financial information to a panel considering their application for a £100,000 grant.
Event planners said that they had to cancel because they had a lack of States support and because they could not get permission in time to hold it at their desired location in St Peter.
Village John Refault, the Constable of St Peter, said that the parish did not support plans to place the festival ‘in the heart of the village’.
He said: ‘They wanted to have the festival behind Manor Farm, Route de Manoir. It was going to be in the heart of the village where residents are and we were uncomfortable with that. ‘We would have been happy if it had been proposed to be at the Val de la Mare site where the Grass Roots festival was. There are fewer residents there and so there would have been much less disturbance.
‘At Manor Farm they already have disturbance with the Airport and we didn’t want any more disturbance to the parishioners.’
Regarding the lack of States backing, Peter Funk, chairman of the Tourism Development Fund advisory panel, said: ‘It appeared to the panel that the grant could be at risk and the organisers were asked for further information.
‘We were hoping to be supportive of this event but we did not have adequate financial information in which to make a positive decision on their grant.’
He added: ‘The Tourism Development Fund has been set up to support tourism and the Island’s economy. The States have provided a considerable fund for grants and we are encouraging applications from all sectors including the private sector. Understandably the process of reviewing applications and the due diligence involved is rigorous and thorough as it must be in any public body.’
The panel received an application from Folklore Festival organisers in autumn last year, asking for £100,000, of which £50,000 of the requested grant would be paid back to the States in 2015 and 2016.
HERE are just some of the reasons why we ‘the not-on- Facebook generation’ had a cracking time at Jersey Folklore: The musicians were legends not celebrities; the toilets were clean (and people washed their hands); there were no queues at the bar; the sun shone; Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry; Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s hat; it was largely a fashion-free zone; Becks; no teenagers puking up on your shoes; no litter; John Cooper Clarke; police officers didn’t feel the need to dress up like Robocop; revellers on the right side of drunk; no in-your-face corporate sponsorship; cups of tea and doughnuts; Ray Davies; the People’s Park didn’t feel like the People’s Park; Sunday night didn’t feel like Sunday night.
Yes, the crowd was on the aged side of middle-aged, but they had been there when it mattered: punks, beatniks and rockers had become bankers, teachers and grandparents, but free of the anxieties of youth, they all created a happy calm.
According to the security staff who were brought in from the UK and who do all the major festivals, this was the easiest gig they’d ever done – except for the Royal Wedding.
Folklore was to Jersey Live what a chilled-out sunset drink at the Watersplash is to the Royal Yacht on a Friday night.
There was room to chat with friends and have a laugh with strangers. By day two, the ID checking station to prevent underage drinking had shut up shop for lack of custom and the St John Ambulance medics were about as busy as the ubiquitous Mitch Couriard’s razor.
And then there were the musicians. Wanda Jackson recounted how she had dated Elvis, even at 76 Lee Perry was sublimely bonkers (as was the skinniest of skinny jean kings in the poetry tent, John Cooper Clarke), Ray Davies was The Kinks, Joan Armatrading was bouncing with soul and Van Morrison grunted quite a lot into his sax.
Even if none of them had opened their mouths, their presence on stage would have been mesmerising.
The amazing lives they have lived are etched into every one of their faces. Although in many ways it was a positive because the venue was nowhere near crowded, it is a shame that there were not more people there.
We all just have to hope that the organisers are in it for the long run and stage it again. Folklore was a pleasant surprise.
