I have to claim knowledge of the previous poster so anything I say may be rejected as blind support but his daughters have also had me into Goth weekends at Whitby the people and music surprised a real old man like me. Somehow I think "our" genre seems to be the most exclusive by which I mean we do tend to be a little moderate and conservative in our tastes.

Steeleye , Fairport are now old but when I first heard them they were leading edge. They havent lost that feel. I would like to see more bands doing the same.

Soapbox alert :

Trad music as we know it wasn't trad 100 plus years ago. (stay with me I know this is an old chestnut) but the performers from say 1800 onwards used to have very small venues to play. No theater would have them . They had to play in local inns and taverns , occasionally fairs and markets. We now pursue the love of their music but suddenly have very large venues. Think that a modern large folk club holds 100+ This would be an unbelievable venue 200 years ago. Now it's considered small. Hence amplification. So the next step is amplification using modern instruments , synths and processors. Listen to the small pipes from Northumberland , the Melodeon , Concertina et al. They are all the beginnings of a desire for polyphonic sounds. We now have the wherewithall (SP) to easily give sound to audiences of 1000+ . It's a natural progression that the old dead guys would have snatched and given voice to in my humble opinion.

Soapbox all clear.

I see that trying to deliver a trad song to a massive venue is alien to the roots of the song and singers of their day but it's what we have now.

No More Burgundy , Volnay is killing me slowly.

Spot