"Al is correct, 9o per cent of the folk club performers would not be able to perform and entertain in a pub to a non folk audience."

I don't disagree, but so what? Most of them aren't attempting to do so. I don't suppose the Royal Philharmonic would be very good at entertaining a pub audience either. It's not an appropriate yardstick.

The problem with Al's argument is that he seems to dismiss any audience which is actually interested in folk music as not being "real folks". If they want to sit and listen to the music they must be middle-class and not worth bothering with. Of course, he knows nothing about their actual backgrounds.