My tale of our debut attendance at the 2023 Lancaster Music Festival continues as we left the Pub and traversed down Market Street to the historic Lancaster Market Square which dates all the way back to 1193. On one corner of the square resides the Lancaster City Museum, which is contained within a Grade II listed building. This sits alongside Lancaster Library where I have previously attended many fine gigs as they were the forerunner of the utterly commendable Get it Loud in the Library scheme.
Lancaster Market Square with the Library building to the right. Image Credit Geograph Britain and Ireland.
On the festival day this was one of the central hubs with food stalls selling tasty Indian snacks that you didn’t know you needed until you sampled them. There was a stage located on the square and the first band we saw had the distinctly unappetising moniker of Do You Like Worms? They are an acoustic duo who are based in Lancaster and home record their own material.
The second act was the Baybeat Street Band, they evolved from and are the longest standing project of the More Music education and music charity. This initiative is an Arts Council organisation and was established in 1993 with the primary purpose of delivering workshops, training, performances and festivals across the Northwest of England area. The carnival band play regularly at festivals around the local area and around the country and have a pot pourri of influences including Brazilian, Cuban, North African and Caribbean sounds.
It was a rather Baltic day, and emergency visits were made by members of the festival crew to Mountain Warehouse and Primark to purchase various forms of funky knitwear to keep the icicles at bay. The latter named shop is located in the Lancaster Marketgate Shopping Centre and next to their entrance the full personnel of the Haffner Orchestra were all squeezed in place to play a novel afternoon set.
Haffner Orchestra performing at the festival. Image Credit thebayhealthfestivals.org.uk
They are Lancaster’s very own symphony orchestra, and they are composed of a mix of amateurs and professionals from across the region. They undertake three regular shows each year however they generously included an additional performance this year specifically for the festival. Alex Robinson is the current musical director and conductor who also plays a suite of musical instruments himself, but this was his debut performance at the helm.
The content of their performance related to Mozart’s 40th symphony in G Minor where they broke the music down into components and crafted it all back together alongside periodic commentary updates from the conductor. Additionally, members of the audience, many children, were offered the rare and exciting opportunity to literally take up the baton and conduct the orchestra themselves.
I looked around at one point and identified that all my crew had disappeared, so took the chance and headed off on my ‘Jack Jones’ to locate a bonus gig and venue as there were so many to be picked off. So, I headed off again further up Market Street followed by a right turn into Penny Street and after Shoe Zone took a left into Diggles Ffrances Passage, one of the many old ginnels in Lancaster.
This leads out onto Gage Street directly in front of the Tap House pub on the right and the Lancaster Collegian Club on the left. The building is home to a private working men’s clubthat can be hired for functions,and I have walked past many times without a reason to visit, but today I did! Up a set of stairs brought you to the traditional function room with trestle tables. On stage was a hometown singer/songwriter Nicky Snell who was undertaking her second set of the day. Nicky is also an artist and chairs songwriting workshops alongside exhibiting her paintings.
Lancaster Collegian Club. Image Credit whatpub.com