There will be a Ukulele Festival in York on Saturday July 12th 2014. More information is available at http://gouyclub.wordpress.com/york-ukulele-festival/ Below is a report on the 2013 Festival to wet your appetite!
Northern Sky Radio: York Ukulele Festival 2013
Sunny with a very good chance of heavy rain. That was the forecast for Saturday 15th June 2013 in York. But, as puffs of off-white cloud tickled the twin bell towers of the city’s scaffolded Minster, nobody really seemed to care what the skies had in store. From 11am, every alley and snickleway of this ancient city would be filled with the sunny sound of that most delightful and ever-popular of instruments, the humble uke.
The first ever York Ukulele Festival was presented by Red Cow Music – the best music shop in the city to discover the uke or feed your obsession for the instrument – and attracted a bustling crowd of curious onlookers throughout the day. The main stage in St Sampson’s Square boasted a host of strummers – from individual pluckers to sizeable uke orchestras – from mid-morning to late afternoon with the Black Swan pub in Peasholme Green taking over in the evening.
The Grand Old Uke Of York – the city’s most vibrant ukulele collective who meet weekly at Victor J’s Bar in Finkle Street – opened the festival in true Live Aid style with a fifteen-strong uke rendition of Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World. Soon, the weathered slabs of the old Square were flooded with crowds, each unable to stifle that traditional uke-induced smirk. And the smiles were only lengthened by the collective’s buoyant versions of Queen’s Fat Bottom Girls, The Beatles classic Eight Days A Week and a show-stopping Rawhide. A gently enchanting version of Randy Newman’s You’ve Got A Friend In Me was performed by two of the group’s members and another Disney favourite, I Wanna Be Like You, introduced the giggling passers-by to the kazookulele – a uke with a luminous green kazoo pegged to its headstock. And while the music itself laid the foundations for what would be a day of merriment, a brief and unanticipated interlude to let a booming uniformed marching band pass through Parliament Street, during which the entire collective stood in acknowledgement, created an infectious ripple of guffaws that failed to evaporate all day.
Kyle Frasier’s folk-flavoured uke set was next up, featuring a four-stringed rendition of Dirty Old Town as well as a selection of self-penned songs. Kyle also paid tribute to George Harrison – the late Beatle and ukulele-obsessive – with an admirable re-working of If Not For You – the Dylan song that Harrison covered on his All Things Must Pass album.
After a colourful performance and rousing version of Rainbow’s Since You’ve Been Gone from the Harrogate Ukulele Group, the seven-piece Ukulele Sunshine Revival rattled off a lengthy set of well-known numbers such as Fisherman’s Blues, Hello Mary Lou and a beguiling version of Mr Sandman. And, as those grey clouds began to let go of their first stinging drops of rain, pupils from York’s Headlands School took to the stage for an impressive showcase of cleverly-reworked songs, including a fitting rendition of It’s Raining, It’s Pouring.
Thankfully, the charming little pub The Habit was on hand to save us from getting drenched with a ukulele open mic session. The boards of the pub’s first floor were put to the test when hoards of uke-lovers assembled to sip local ale and listen to impromptu performances from a long list of diverse strummers. Performers as young as fourteen shared the bill with more seasoned ukulele players in front of the pub’s open upstairs window, filling not just the room with that adorably happy sound but the whole of Goodramgate, too.
And the happiness continued well into the evening with further performances at the city’s six-hundred year old Black Swan, sealing the lid on York’s first ever and clearly very successful Ukulele Festival. Let’s hope the dancing fleas will descend upon us again next year.
Liam Wilkinson, Northern Sky, http://www.allanwilkinson.co.uk/node/2974
Northern Sky Radio: York Ukulele Festival 2013
Sunny with a very good chance of heavy rain. That was the forecast for Saturday 15th June 2013 in York. But, as puffs of off-white cloud tickled the twin bell towers of the city’s scaffolded Minster, nobody really seemed to care what the skies had in store. From 11am, every alley and snickleway of this ancient city would be filled with the sunny sound of that most delightful and ever-popular of instruments, the humble uke.
The first ever York Ukulele Festival was presented by Red Cow Music – the best music shop in the city to discover the uke or feed your obsession for the instrument – and attracted a bustling crowd of curious onlookers throughout the day. The main stage in St Sampson’s Square boasted a host of strummers – from individual pluckers to sizeable uke orchestras – from mid-morning to late afternoon with the Black Swan pub in Peasholme Green taking over in the evening.
The Grand Old Uke Of York – the city’s most vibrant ukulele collective who meet weekly at Victor J’s Bar in Finkle Street – opened the festival in true Live Aid style with a fifteen-strong uke rendition of Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World. Soon, the weathered slabs of the old Square were flooded with crowds, each unable to stifle that traditional uke-induced smirk. And the smiles were only lengthened by the collective’s buoyant versions of Queen’s Fat Bottom Girls, The Beatles classic Eight Days A Week and a show-stopping Rawhide. A gently enchanting version of Randy Newman’s You’ve Got A Friend In Me was performed by two of the group’s members and another Disney favourite, I Wanna Be Like You, introduced the giggling passers-by to the kazookulele – a uke with a luminous green kazoo pegged to its headstock. And while the music itself laid the foundations for what would be a day of merriment, a brief and unanticipated interlude to let a booming uniformed marching band pass through Parliament Street, during which the entire collective stood in acknowledgement, created an infectious ripple of guffaws that failed to evaporate all day.
Kyle Frasier’s folk-flavoured uke set was next up, featuring a four-stringed rendition of Dirty Old Town as well as a selection of self-penned songs. Kyle also paid tribute to George Harrison – the late Beatle and ukulele-obsessive – with an admirable re-working of If Not For You – the Dylan song that Harrison covered on his All Things Must Pass album.
After a colourful performance and rousing version of Rainbow’s Since You’ve Been Gone from the Harrogate Ukulele Group, the seven-piece Ukulele Sunshine Revival rattled off a lengthy set of well-known numbers such as Fisherman’s Blues, Hello Mary Lou and a beguiling version of Mr Sandman. And, as those grey clouds began to let go of their first stinging drops of rain, pupils from York’s Headlands School took to the stage for an impressive showcase of cleverly-reworked songs, including a fitting rendition of It’s Raining, It’s Pouring.
Thankfully, the charming little pub The Habit was on hand to save us from getting drenched with a ukulele open mic session. The boards of the pub’s first floor were put to the test when hoards of uke-lovers assembled to sip local ale and listen to impromptu performances from a long list of diverse strummers. Performers as young as fourteen shared the bill with more seasoned ukulele players in front of the pub’s open upstairs window, filling not just the room with that adorably happy sound but the whole of Goodramgate, too.
And the happiness continued well into the evening with further performances at the city’s six-hundred year old Black Swan, sealing the lid on York’s first ever and clearly very successful Ukulele Festival. Let’s hope the dancing fleas will descend upon us again next year.
Liam Wilkinson, Northern Sky, http://www.allanwilkinson.co.uk/node/2974