April is an unpredictable month, but the big news is that Royston Live, formerly Royston Folk Club, is moving home from the Royal British Legion where it has been located for the last couple of years to The Plough in Shepreth which is about five miles to the north of the present location, but accessible by public transport as the rail station is a short walk away. Unicorn Folk understands that the decision has been taken in part owing to the better facilities including sound equipment available at the new venue which has a recent history of staging music events similar to those staged by Royst ..read more

Why Mad March? Well, just because it seems to have been so busy, an indication of which is the fact that Unicorn Folk received 9 CDs for review in just over one week recently, though on the other hand, it’s great to see that things are moving and the folk scene is coming to life again with each passing month. On the subject of new albums, I have managed to review four of those received so far: John Meed and Friends with A Sudden Rain; The Battered Case with City of Song; Mat Green & Andy Turner with Time For A Stottycake, and Pete Cooper & Richard Bolton with Burning Bright. All of the ..read more

This seems a strange time of the year with such mild weather in February, in the South-East at least, and perhaps that’s why life seems unusually busy again though if I start repeating myself that’s not going to be very entertaining! What should be very entertaining are many of the acts that we have coming to our region over the next week or so. Tonight, Tuesday 20th I’m off to see Bird In The Belly in concert at St Neots Folk Club a band that I have wanted to see ever since I wrote the review of their CD ‘After The City’ for Unicorn Folk which you can read HERE along with lots of other review ..read more

As I said in the last blog, life seems very busy at the moment and before we know it we will be Into February and beyond. In the meantime, there are lots of good things coming up, (and that’s leaving aside the Six Nations rugby!) in the form of several concerts in our locality, starting with another reminder about Royston Live on Friday 26th January featuring The Bounty Hounds and with the new management team of Bryan Causton, Penni Maclaren-Walker, Guido Rincón & Jeremy Harmer providing support. You will have to be quick to catch the Burns Night celebration at the Four Rivers Folk Club in ..read more

I don’t know about anyone else but where I am usually a bit fed up at this time of the year, post-festive season and with at least a couple of months of cold weather to look forward to, the fact that life seems very busy seems to have mitigated my usual post-festive blues. Maybe it’s the knowledge that there is lots of good music in store for us soon and to that end there is a new version of the Unicorn Diary in The Listings on the main Unicorn Folk website which covers the first three months of events at music venues in the local area in 2024. If your venue is not listed then do be sure ..read more

It will soon be Christmas and most of the local folk clubs have had their Christmas parties and wound down for the festive season, including Royston Live where we had an excellent evening with a great story from Chris Walls and songs from Mark Gamon who are both stepping back after 10 years organising the club with help from partners Lesley and Becky amongst others. Many thanks to all of them for all their efforts in providing so many enjoyable evenings at the club! The evening was topped off with an appearance from Black Scarr who, as usual, left the audience demanding more before we all depa ..read more

The nights really are drawing in now and with the bonfire and fireworks season out of the way (“thank goodness” says our cat!) we will soon be going into the festive season and forthcoming gigs are starting to reflect that. More of that later but there are an action-packed few days coming up in local clubs with a packed session to start on Friday November 24 at ROYSTON LIVE featuring Wickenwood, + Bob Hines + Thursday’s Band + The Big Buch Band. The Ben Smith and Jimmy Brewer Acoustic Band provided a wonderful evening’s entertainment at Royston Live’s previous concert and tickets for Friday’s ..read more

It has been a while since the last news blog owing mainly to the demands of organising Royston Arts Festival & Royston MusicFest and the recovery time needed afterwards! If you couldn’t get to the latter you can get a flavour of what you have missed by listening to the MusicFest podcasts which can be found on the Royston Radio website under ‘Filby’s Folk’ (scroll down to Shows 17 & 18 and try to ignore the horrible pictures you are presented with!) The weekly show goes out at 7pm on Sundays – listen HERE. Looking ahead now, it may be too short notice to catch ‘The Trees’ at the Four Ri ..read more

This is a quick short heads up to everyone who might be considering going to Royston MusicFest on Sunday 1st October as described in our last blog. You can listen to a preview of all the artists performing at Royston MusicFest tonight Sunday 17th September at 7pm on Royston Radio in a MusicFest Special. Royston MusicFest will take place on the afternoon of 1st October between midday and 5.30pm as part of Royston Arts Festival taking place from Friday 22nd September to Sunday 1st October. There will be FREE entry to participating pubs & clubs around town and any membership requirements will ..read more

Oh dear! It’s a good job that August is a quiet month on the folk scene, for the clubs at least, although of course the opposite applies for festivals and I hope you enjoyed any that you went to. Unicorn Folk has been quiet for a while for reasons that I will come to, but in the meantime folk clubs are opening up again and there are some very interesting evenings awaiting music fans around here. Royston Live actually started up on August 25th and they are back with bang this coming Friday 8th with a concert featuring the talented Ken Nicol of Steeleye Span and Albion band fame (amongst others ..read more