First guests at the Foresters will be;
JOHN SPIERS & JON BODEN -John Spiers (melodeon) and Jon Boden (fiddle) are an exciting young duo who play a lively mix of folk songs and tunes mainly from the English tradition. Since the release of their first album, 'Through & Through', they have aroused much interest on the UK folk scene including winning 'Best New Act' for the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and a  runners up spot in the BBC Radio 3 World Music award. John started playing the melodeon while at King's College, Cambridge. To his surprise, he found he could play it quite well and he seemed to know an astonishingly large repertoire of morris dance tunes which had gone in to his system while watching his dad dance as a child. As well as the duo with Jon Boden, he plays in a Ceilidh band with Jon Boden & Benji Kirkpatrick. As for Jon - "Norma and I saw this lad called Jon Boden playing at the Lewes folk club down in Sussex and we were completely blown away by him. This lad was wonderful"  said Martin Carthy - enough said! Jon Boden is one of the most exciting singers to have come on the traditional music scene in the past 20 years. His voice is distinctive and powerful. When playing tune sets he is pure energy and a delight to watch. Jon's main love of English folk song came from his regular visits to the Coalpits singing session while at Durham University. However Jon was already an accomplished fiddler in both English and Irish styles, hence the development of his fiddle-singing technique which when seen live is mind-blowing. His main influences are Peter Bellamy and Martin Carthy for singing and Eliza Carthy and Nancy Kerr for fiddle playing. - See www.squeezy.fsnet.co.uk - Entrance £5.00