On Thursday night I had a great time watching UK singer songwriter Katey Brookes play at the Upper Lansedown Community Hall.

 

Katey Brooks live on stage

Katey’s third visit to Australia coincided with the National Folk Festival in Canberra and saw her touring around the country for a couple of months.

 

As a relatively new resident to the Mid North Coast I hadn’t been up to the Upper Lansdowne Hall before but the moment I walked in I felt like I was back at home in the Bega Valley. It felt like I’d walked into Tanja or Candelo, the venue itself was very similar to those venues but more than anything I felt like I knew the whole audience.

 

If you don’t know Katey Brooks then I highly recommend you look her up, she has an amazing folk sound with an incredible quality to her voice. In researching Katey before I interviewed her the other day one thing jumped out at me, she has been likened to Jeff Buckley. Whilst it might seem odd to match Buckley to a folk singer, that is the strength of the unique quality in her voice. Brookes’ powerful low notes and soaring upper register give her the ability to perform in a similar vein to Jeff Buckley belting out something like Last Goodbye.

Sam, Siman and Silas are The Dingo Creek String Band

 

The flyer for this gig suggested that Brookes’ support act The Dingo Creek String Band were relatively new kids on the block. What it didn’t tell you though was that this was in fact their first show ever, that being the case, their set was actually pretty damn good.

 

The band is made up of Sam on bass, Simon on guitar, banjo and vocals and Silas on Dobro and guitar. Simon shows himself to be a great story teller both in banter between songs and as quite a talented writer. As he told me in conversation, he’s been writing since he was about 13 but it’s only recently that he’s put it together with a band, I caught up with the boys on the veranda after their set.