"I'm getting a bid fed up with negativity and rants about Show of Hands so I'd just like to say I really like Bellowhead and am looking forward to seeing them at Buxton in a week or so's time."


Show of Hands just happened to be the band concerned at the time, Ian. I'm not ranting or raging that they didn't win anything. My post would have been exactly the same had Bellowhead won the first public vote, then been told that vote was being removed because 'they'd just keep winning it' due to their large fanbase, had they had the same numerically successful fanbase that the other band had way back then.

Of course, my argument is also that this probably would *never* have happened, because the Bellowhead lads and lassies are totally accepted, supported and much loved by those who control the Folk World.

This is NOT a rant about SoH or anyone else, merely about the crooked and incestuous system that for was too long has dominated the folk world.

If folks are happy to put up with it, fair enough.

Personally, I think it stinks, have been saying so for years, and will continue to say so, because this system is deeply unfair to the huge amount of other folk bands/performers out there who never get a look in because they are outside The Magic Folk Circle....some are new and younger, some have been kept outside for a very long time...and quite simply, in my opinion, that is totally wrong.