Well done Mr Carroll. At last you prefaced your comments with "for me" rather than trying to inflict your view on others. There's hope for you yet.

Your views are not ridiculous as such, just not shared by those of us with a passion for folk that isn't the same as your own. Your long but readable post duly laments the demise of certain types of folk club and I share it (although I feel walking out and not enjoying a good night out is self defeating) but in the folk tradition, clubs and content evolve.

There are many recently written folk "standards" but not standard as in universal. I love going to areas of the country where most places know and many perform songs that would be heard for the first time in other areas. Even with YouTube and most performers having a net presence, you still get songs well known somewhere but not elsewhere.   I recently sang a trad song in Doncaster that hardly anybody knew yet a few donkeys back, you could hear it most nights in clubs in towns less than twenty miles away.

The acoustic solution isn't really a solution. I too use it in a club I help run in order to widen the net somewhat. Some of us are appearing in a charity concert next week and one man who plays '50s pop songs is insisting on playing acoustic whilst I shall be plugged in playing jigs and reels. We could have as much fun with acoustic as we do with folk on these threads, except nobody feels the need to wear their trousers up to their tits.

😎