Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2025: Highlights

Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2025 was just wonderful. Glorious sunshine, brilliant music and that warm festival feeling that makes it our favourite weekend of the year. We have been coming for so many years now and it never fails to feel like home. For anyone who doesn’t know us, we are Chris Elliott and Caitlin Jones and together we perform as Farefeld. Back in 2018 we were lucky enough to win the Open Mic competition which meant we got to play in the Sabrina marquee in 2019. That was such a special moment for us and a real milestone in our journey as a duo. This year was packed with highlights and we thought we would share a few of our favourites.

Chris’ highlights: Project Smok on the Sabrina stage absolutely blew me away. Their energy is something else and the whistle playing in particular was out of this world. Sam Kelly and Jamie Francis on the Severn stage were another stand out for me. Sam’s vocals are just incredible and paired with Jamie’s playing it made for such a powerful set. And then of course the Irish sessions every night in the beer tent. Fantastic players, brilliant tunes and the best way to end the night.

Caitlin’s highlights: Melrose Quartet on the Pengwern stage were everything I hoped for. Their harmonies are so rich and their whole set was full of warmth and joy. I also loved seeing the National Youth Folk Ensemble. Their arrangements are so clever and the standard of playing is just amazing. It is always exciting to see the next generation of folk musicians coming through. And finally, David Eagle’s disco set in the dance tent was completely bonkers and brilliant. A mix of dancefloor classics with a folk twist and so much fun to dance to.

Thank you to the organisers and the stewards for everything they do to make the festival run so smoothly. Shrewsbury is always a highlight of our year and 2025 was no exception. We are already counting down the days until next year.

(Farefeld performing at the festival in 2018)

(That’s me on the far left)

The festival is always a great family affair with lots of things going on for kids and parents and this year was no exception in the wonderful late August weather.

This year however there was also a family feel to some of the acts on stage. One of the pleasant surprises for me were Natalie MacMaster and husband Donnel Leahy from Canada. I must admit I had checked them out on YouTube beforehand and thought I might give them a miss. I was so glad I changed my mind! Not only are they exceptional musicians, their son, daughter and son-in law are also part of the band. The younger generation blew us away not just with their musicianship but also with their incredible dancing, which was spectacular.

Check them out here:

Natalie MacMaster & Donnell Leahy – YouTube

The Ayoub Sisters

Another family affair, and a complete delight, were The Ayoub Sisters, who played a kind of Celtic/Arabic fusion. You would be forgiven for thinking, as I did, that they had flown over from an exotic middle eastern country, but their Scottish accents told a different story. They were born in Scotland of Egyptian parents and their music combines both traditions. In short, they were sublime.

(Stills from The Ayoub Sisters, Shrewsbury Folk Festival, 23/08/2025)

(Julie with daughter…)

(Stills from Judie Tzuke – live at Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2025)

Judie Tzuke
Before I leave the family theme, an honorable mention also for Judie Tzuke. Best known for her pop hit “Stay with me till Dawn”, Judie has been writing songs and making albums for the past 5 decades and still has a great voice. She gave a brilliant performance, aided by her daughter on vocals throughout. Finally, she brought on her granddaughter (!) who gave creditable backup vocals on her final number, which was of course her big hit from 1979.

(And with granddaughter)

Kim Carnie

One of the absolute highlights for us was Kim Carnie. With her band she performed a beautiful set of songs in both Gaelic and English on Friday night. Many were originals and some traditional. There was just one well-known cover with her unique version of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice Its All Right”. You know it is a memorable set when you just don’t want it to end.

Here are some of our other personal highlights.

Dan Owen, the only local musician and the only one that we saw who performed solo. He fills the space with his amazing guitar work and his incredible voice. A highlight was his driving version of “Little Red Rooster”.

We Mavericks a delightful Aussie/New Zealand duo who charmed us with their songs and banter.

Touki gave us gorgeous kora sounds: perfect for a warm afternoon.

Morganway, got the final day going with a polished, driving set.

Sam Kelly & Jamie Francis gave us their modern takes on traditional songs and traditionally influenced modern songs.

The Henry Girls entertained with their lovely harmonies.

Others will no doubt write about the big names, The Oysterband, The Levellers etc but we like to focus on the new.

Looking back I was also asked to pick out a highlight from the 12 years we have been going to the festival. That was difficult, my first thought was Rosanne Cash who we saw there in 2016. She had a fantastic sound and mesmerized us with her stories and her heritage. The final winner though for myself and my wife was Dreamers’ Circus, who performed in 2023. Their musicianship and versatility was a complete surprise. I can do no better than to point you to the complete performance here:

Dreamers’ Circus – Full Concert (2023, Shrewsbury Folk Festival)

You can also see the whole Rosanne Cash performance here: Rosanne Cash with John Leventhal at Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2016

I am always amazed by the creativity on show at the festival; the bands, the sessions, the crafts, the amazingly weird things people wear and do – everything! It feels like an explosion of colour, music and eccentricity, and has become the highlight of my year. More than that though, it broadens my folk horizons every year, and does so much good for the local area’s music scene; that’s something, as a gigging local folkie and session enthusiast, I’m very glad about!

A highlight for me this year was El Pony Pisador – I reckon they’re the most creative band I’ve ever seen, and they put on one of the best gigs I’ve ever seen too. What a wonderful mixture of brilliant instrumental and vocal talent, mad stage choreography and mickey-taking! Watching them do “an acapella sea shanty for the shanty purists” with a seamlessly blended Mongolian throat singing solo, a Reggae interlude and a dubstep break was just amazing.

And every year, I am struck by the power and the joy of the musicians’ final parade round the showground, as the sun goes down on Monday. Usually, it’s on the top of the bus, but this year it had to be a replacement service on foot, due to technical difficulties. This in no way diminished its effect, and I can’t think of a better way of ending a festival. Long live Shrewsbury Festival – I’ve already got my ticket for next year!

This was Matt’s first Folk festival and he tried to get to everything! After going to lots of workshops and ceilidhs, he shared his notes with us…

Workshops have different styles of teaching Mandolin workshop – lead us through starting with strumming patterns and then adding in the notes.

Welsh workshop – good for teaching they had us sing the tune first so that it was in our heads properly.

Playing for dance – really good tips to make music good for dancing. They were showing us how to see when to pick up the pace or slow down. How to put bounce in the tunes so that the dancers have cues for when to step. Also notes on building up the hype and notes on when can be too much.

Ceilidh – not so good for beginners. The caller assumed everyone knew the moves but obviously some people didn’t so there was a lot of people who were lost. A reel is easy to do if you know what a reel is but if you don’t then it’s hard to do when you’ve never seen it before. Went to another ceilidh the next day that was a lot better though.

Sometimes my laptop needs to shutdown in order to update. I am learning the wisdom of this. Disconnecting in order to reconnect.

For me, disconnection (and reconnection) comes in the form of the Shrewsbury Folk Festival.

For the 16th year we find ourselves bathed in a special kind of kind of vibe – part carnival, part picnic, part ‘finger-in-ear’ folk fest. Whether your pleasure is Appalachian flatfooting; Acapella; crowd-rowsing ceilidhs; bands from Connemara, Cornwall, Caithness or Quimper; or Dulcimer workshops, there is nourishment here. Or maybe, like me, it’s the joy of working your way through the 100 or so ales on tap, while being serenaded by the finest pick-up folk group never to have played together before.

The hole in our Summer that missing a year at the SFF would leave, is not worth thinking about.

Thanks to the Showcase Scotland Expo, this year had a multitude of Scottish acts and during the festival, several were added to my new favourites list. I was working on a craft stall over the weekend and in-between acts the village stage would play recorded music from the festival playlist. There were so many tracks that I really loved that I took to using Shazam to see who they were. Kim Carnie’s She Moves Me was one of those tracks, so I decided to go and listen to her performance but live she was even more incredible. It is a special thing to hear an artist with a voice that “moves you” (no pun intended) and Carnie definitely has that kind of voice, one that reminds you that there is something almost spiritual about music. She reminds me of Cara Dillon and Siobhan Miller and I really hope to see her perform again soon.

Another highlight from the SSE was Project Smok, who had already been a favourite on my playlists for some time. As with Carnie and frankly most artists in the Folk world, their live performance was on another level to their recorded music (which is saying something) and you could just feel the raw talent radiating from the stage, not just from one player but every single member of the trio. From the moving heartfelt song Ceitdh’s (sung together by one of the members and his partner) to the bouncing tune Airborne, you were taken on a journey of music and I, along with everyone else in the audience, was thrilled to have been along for the ride.

The workshops at the festival are always worth going to and having missed them the last few years, I was determined to get to the Welsh Tunes workshop, run brilliantly by Jem Hammond. I run a session at the White Horse in Shrewsbury and have been wanting to introduce some Welsh music into the group for some time. Finding these tunes had not proven to be as easy to find as other countries in the UK, as historically church choral music had taken over in Wales and Folk music had been frowned upon, so were not collected and shared so widely. These workshops presented the opportunity to learn these precious gems and over two sessions, with Jem teaching us them by first singing the tune then picking up our instruments and playing them, I was able to add three new tunes to my repertoire. I am looking forward to next year’s festival to learn another three!

Some more honourable mentions should definitely include:
Seeing local artist Dan Owen perform and fingers crossed for more local artists performing at the festival.

Blazing Fiddles were so full of energy and got me hopping from side to side!

Taking part in the customary parade of musicians around the festival grounds – usually this is on top of the Moongazing Hares’ green bus but due to vehicle illness, this was an on-foot version, which was at least as fun, if not more!

I have been coming to the festival since it was based in my birth-town of Bridgnorth, so I have many incredible memories from over the years. I think my personal highlight throughout all of these has to be seeing Bellowhead perform at the festival for the first time. It was just such a different sound and energy from what I had heard or seen before and showed how such a versatile set of instruments, many not usually associated with the genre, could come together to perform Folk music in the most incredible way.