Darlington Market Place Festival 2013

Yeah, once again Darlington Town Council, along with Mike Prendergast & Darlington R’n'B Club did the town proud with yesterday’s free Blues/Rock festival.

The Atlantic Soul Messengers get the proceedings underway way at 1pm in the Market Place with a heady mix of Soul standards, and their horn section singled the start for other bands to kick off in various pubs and bars around the market square. As ever, a day of something for everyone; from the acoustic stylings of ol’ mate on another forum, Gary Grainger to the heavy 70’s rock of Tom Atkinson. Really, if you couldn’t find something you liked, then you weren’t trying, even with the traditional “legends” set, this year from The Pretty Things. So many bands on in so many places, it’s almost impossible to catch everyone, but even just the ones I caught brief snatches of, were giving it their all, so my apologies for not name checking everyone.

Main even for me though was Aynsley, and get the grumbles over, he was only given an hour, but in his first appearance in the town since December 2007 (said he, speedily checking the archive…....), Aynsley & the band came out swinging. The set, as expected was centred round the new album, but Hyde, Home, Sugar, Inside Out and Possession went down well with the gathered crowd along side a couple of Aynsley “standards” and an impromptu acapella Fly Me To The Moon. With the Darlington festival, you know you’re good when you stop the casual Sunday shopper in their tracks; you’re something special though when you can pull folks out the surrounding pubs and bars; and they stayed to listen, despite the dirty trick the weather played. Well, that last appearance in town was a sold-out show, so maybe Darlington has a good memory too. The weather wasn’t the kindest, Aynsley keeping his coat on until the last possible moment while Andre resolutely wouldn’t remove his parker, looking like he was auditioning for The Stone Roses…. Only Steve and Boneto didn’t seem to mind the cold - too much.

There was really nasty, squally downpour that scattered all but the die-hards (including forum old-guard Britbabe), but I was just working out last night - had the change-over gremlins not appeared and Aynsley’s set started on time, then it would have happened in time for the opening bars of set closer Purple Rain. Slight irony, after the change-over and The Pretty Things’ set got underway, the clouds parted and bathed Darlington in glorious autumn sunshine.