Traditional celtic punk for a real shanty knees up!
Straight out of Kernow and heading our way to London real soon here’s a review of a recent Black Friday gig to wet your whistles for the real thing. A high energy Celtic folk band from St Germans in Cornwall. They play a fine mix of original songs, traditional Irish jigs, reels and ballads and a few cover’s thrown in by bands such as the Pogues, Flogging Molly and the Mahones.
They have toured all over England and Europe including a variety of venues and festivals such as The Maker Festival, The Port Eliot Lit Fest, The Electric Picnic in Ireland, The Plymouth Folk Festival, Calstock Biker Festival, Burnham-on-Sea Folk Festival and Wimbourne Folk Festival as well as a tour of Austria, which including playing at the worlds largest festival, the Donauinsel Fest. After playing at the reknowned Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues Club in London they were spotted by top Radio DJ, Marc Lamarr, who invited them to record a 6 song session at the famous Maida Vale studio in London for his show. Whilst they were there, they played for and met their hero and Pogues singer, Shane MacGowan. In 2015 the band got into the Guinness Book of Records for performing the most gigs in one day, 30 gigs in 12 hours!
Live at The Inn On The Shore, Downderry, Cornwall
OK, full disclosure here, I was really in attendance at this gig to help a good friend celebrate a significant birthday in my local but, by happy accident, this coincided with the chance to see one of the most highly respected bands currently working the circuit in Cornwall. Black Friday ply their trade in the realms of celtic folk but there is so, so much more to them than that. With all seven members squeezed in to one corner of the pub, the group set about winding up the atmosphere slowly, raising the temperature and creating an atmosphere. Original compositions mixed in amongst classics like ‘Dirty Old Town’ and ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ without missing a beat, showing the quality of the band’s rendition of these classic songs.
It is, however, in the live arena that this collective excels and, even in a tiny space, they can’t help but perform like the natural entertainers they are. From the lowest slung Banjo I’ve ever seen to some seriously fierce Mandolin work, Black Friday an absolute joy to watch if you can manage to take it all in.
The folk ethos is up front for everyone to see but then you’ve got elements of Blues, Country, Rock’n’Roll and, when that wah-wah pedal kicks in, things get a little funky as well. I’ll admit that alcohol and socialising deflected my full attention but I’ll definitely be checking these guys out again. On first impressions, if you want a band to turn up, play fiercely uplifting music that will get the place jumping and have any audience eating out of the palm of their hands then Black Friday are the guys and girls for you, make no mistake.
Review by LISTEN WITH MONGER
check out their blog here
Black Friday make a rare foray into enemy territory and play a gig in good old London town soon in the run up to St Patrick’s Day. Performing at the infamous ‘Gaz’s Rockin Blues’ club at the St. Moritz, 159 Wardour Street, Soho, London W1 (nearest tube Tottenham Court Road). An amazing club run by Gaz Mayall from the legendary celtic-ska band The Trojans who has been running this night every Thursday for the past 30 years. So as you can see it’s not to be missed and you can check out what’s happening at the Facebook event page here. One thing though the gig doesn’t start till 10pm so might be worth throwing a sickie and enjoying a long weekend!
Contact Black Friday
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for an excellent resource on Cornwall go check out ‘An Omsav- The Cornish Republican’ here
“It’s not that Cornwall became part of England, it’s just that the English forgot Cornwall was not part of their country”
LONDON CELTIC PUNKS WEB-ZINE 
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