Saturday at Malvern Rocks

Geoffrey Head spent the day enjoying the music and taking a few photos.

I had a very enjoyable day at the beautifully organised Malvern Rocks Festival on Saturday. It’s back after a seven year absence and if this year’s programme was anything to go by, it deserves to become a regular feature in the calendar again.

Not only were the performers I saw of very fine quality indeed but it was also a good day for sound techs in a wide variety of different conditions.

The photos I took are concentrated on three acts I hope to be seeing regularly in the future – The Polly Edwards Band with a wide programme of jazz, blues and soul with some excellent original material too, all topped by Polly’s soaring vocals.

Teresa Myatt was playing on a very posh traffic island in the middle of the A449 (no, I’m not making this up) but her crystal clear piano tone and vocals, backed by local duo Nothin’ But Dust cut positively through any ambient noise, and there was some very fluent guitar playing going on as well.

Finally, Hennesea provided an immaculate set of muscular up-tempo Americana, with an excellent front-woman in Anna Watts, fine vocal harmonies, crisp lead guitar work and a rock-solid rhythm section.

I hope these give a flavour of a lovely, relaxed day.

Geoffrey Head