Wild Willy Barrett's French Connection

The end to Salisbury Arts Festival 2015, this free live gig set up in the foyer of the City Hall, started out with just a rather sorry handful, when I got  there.

Clearer LARGE

After the folky support group (there were apparently two more acts before them) and this charismatic and very humorous quartet, with the rascally Wild Will (with whiskers and glasses) wryly leading the pack, complete with broken guitar strings, impromptu ad-libbing and a bit of mock-taking of our lovely French chantreuse here, in that elegant blue dress.

And Gallic she was and she sang beautifully, while Will brought out banjos, guitars and a violin, all hanging up on a rack behind him. I was also rather intrigued by the cello lady, nearest me, the stance required to play a cello elegantly is always a challenge, it seems! I rather liked the designer steel chair that she sat on, too,  She also nipped behind them to play an organ sort of contraption, at times.

The chap on the end, played flute, recorders and various percussive devices. And a bagpipe. One that didn't want to behave.

Songs were a mixture of folky/jazzy/traditional English/Irish and French, all mixed up and then given a further shake....

Shooting was a sod, mainly as cello lady had a mega bright white light on her, whilst chappie on the end was in total darkness. It also had got really full by the midnight I took this and so I couldn't get a head-on view, without being obvious and blocking someone's view. The very left hand side is obstructed further by there being a massive speaker in the way, but you can't have everything and at least I had a good view and the sound quality was very good, as was the entertainment.

I think they were on their third encore at this point. The venue staff looking very unimpressed and unhappy when we continued to get our way with 'more' and stamping of hands and clapping of feet....

The new Tokina 16-50mm f2.8 did its job, as this was a purposeful test for it.

Thanks to ALL for everything on yesterday's Carnival Blip and also for Friday's Ocean Village blip.