30 June, 2021
We huddle round fires to share songs, stories, memories and more. The primal flickering of flames drawing out our deepest hopes, dreams and fears, so that we may face them, acknowledge them and come away transformed. Sometimes these experiences are formal – a gig, a ceremony, a festival or celebration; other times they are happenstance – a camping trip with friends, stumbling across a group of strangers on the beach, a spontaneous gathering on a balmy night. Whatever the occasion or circumstance, something magic occurs when we commune around a fire, a remembering of self and a recognition of ourselves in others, a stripping-away of the distractions of modern life, and a cellular familiarity with this ancient form of socialising, linking us back through the annals to our farthest ancestors. Whether the gathering is sacred or profane, filled with deep emotional intensity or lighthearted fun, our hearth-side experiences often lodge in our brains for what they represent – connection, wildness, and freedom.
We asked some of this year’s Campfire Club artists to share their favourite ‘fire sermon’, and this is what they had to say…
The Hut People
My favourite campfire gig would be with you, dark night by the Thames, fire burning and the crowd up and on it!
Kit Hawes & Aaron Catlow
About 12 or 13 years ago I was camped up at a horse-drawn travellers camp, and Rory Mcleod was playing around the fire. It was a moment of such magic it has always stayed with me.
Jenny Sturgeon
Beltane Fire Festival which happens in Edinburgh every year. A festival which brings people together to revel in celebrating the arrival of summer.
Gnoss
My favourite gig (Aidan here!) round a campfire was Iona Fyfe’s Campfire Club appearance in London back in 2018. I was lucky enough to play guitar for it; the audience was as warm as I’ve known since and the setting couldn’t have been more perfect, forest and bunting in a city hideaway. I remember using the flames to light my fretboard as the sun dipped low. A folky dream.
Polly Paulusma
Once when I was hitching down the West coast of Ireland I got picked up by a bunch of hippies and we camped out in a beautiful place in Sligo known as the Faery Glade and took turns singing songs around a campfire. It was quite magical.
Granny’s Attic
In lockdown at the end of 2020, my housemates and I had a fire in the garden. We listened to music, ate nice food, did some reflecting, and set intentions for the year to come, which we then put on the fire. We had a lovely time together and it was lovely to sit and reflect together on good and bad times, and on hopes for the future.
Intarsia
Jo: Sitting around a campfire on the beach in Senegal on New Year’s eve many years ago.
Sarah: Sharing songs around a fire at the end of a friend’s wedding day.
Both: Sitting and playing around a campfire between lockdowns last summer, during the filming of our promo video by Gavin Repton!
Catherine Rudie
Myself and my partner saw Piers Faccini at a Nest Collective Campfire Club gig a couple of years ago and it was beautiful. A highlight of the summer.
Three Cane Whale
For Paul, it would be the pagan wedding ceremony in a field in Donegal…
For Pete, it would be ‘Singing (And Trumpeting) With Nightingales’ in Highnam Woods in 2019…
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