Following its recent surgery (see Post 66), Carolan has been getting back out on the road again as a regularly gigging guitar, beginning with a series of local gigs close to home.

We last visited the Beeston Oxjam Takeover festival back in 2014 (Post 33 and Post 36) and it’s a pleasure to be able to return to what has grown to become a major community event.  Oxjam is a national series of local music festivals run for and by local musicians to raise money for Oxfam. Over the past nine years,  Beeston’s local version has raised over £100,000 for the cause.

The main feature of the festival is the Takeover day. This year, 127 artists performed in 16 bars, pubs, restaurants, social clubs and churches around the town, delivering 12 hours of non-stop music to over 1000 festival goers.

Carolan (accompanied by Steve) braved the cold to perform a solo set outside the Bean in the afternoon …

… before heading to the warmer climes of the Star Inn to play an evening set with the Phil Langran Band.

However, the festival extends beyond the takeover day, encompassing a series of house concerts, an evening of Operatic Arias and lastly, the closing Oxjam ceilidh, a raucous evening of dancing, where Carolan also made a showing as part of the Beeston Ceilidh Collective.

This year’s festival was a huge success, raising a whopping £26,460 for Oxfam. Congratulations to the many volunteers who made this possible and to the town for so warmly embracing a wonderful community music event. For Carolan, it felt great to be back out on the road again.