The real ale and cider festival at the White Lion, Wilton was a huge success again this year. Despite very mixed weather the event proved extremely popular with regulars and visitors alike.

There were seven performances of live music over the midsummer weekend and their were twelve real ales and six ciders for people to choose from. A few, who shall remain nameless tried them all at least once.

White Lion regular, Fosh, celebrated his 40th birthday on Saturday and landlady Jacqui presented him with a birthday cake with 40 candles. Jeff was on hand with the fire extinguisher, just in case Fosh couldn't blow the candles out before the pergola burnt down. He made it however and apparently enjoyed the rest of his day.

In the photograph to the left is the birthday boy with his lovely daughter Georgia. Georgia did a brilliant job of persuading people to part with their spare change and put it into the Macmillan bucket. Thank you for that Georgia.

The kitchen was very busy over the weekend as usual, as was the barbecue after the kitchen had closed on Saturday and all day Sunday. Thanks Dom, those burgers were great.

Jacqui and Dave would like to thank all people who performed at the festival, all of those who attended and donated to the Macmillan Renton Appeal and all staff who worked that little bit extra to make this year's event the success that it was. (and to Carlos for helping Dave by finishing off the last of the Broome Farm cider!)

I spent virtually the whole of last weekend - Friday evening until Sunday late, at the White Lion Festival, just slipping out to cover other events. This was unexpected in as much as I was unaware until the very last minute that Tina had volunteered me to provide the music between bands. It was however very enjoyable and I had a great time, meeting with friends, musicians and musicians who are also friends.

Didn't get chance to spend any quality time with any of you really as I was also photographing and filming but it was great to see you all again! The lack of conversation applied to Tina also. Although we were both there the whole weekend, we were both on entirely separate missions and probably only managed to exchange a couple of dozen words the whole busy weekend.

Below, you can watch video extracts from the weekend's festival events. I owe a couple of apologies here. The first is to 'Little Sister'. I cannot show the video I promised 'Little Sister' because they performed last on Saturday and I was heading off somewhere else. The fatigue had set in by the time I made the recording and I jerked the camera, which made the automatic drop detector kick in and it stopped the film. The song I recorded was Whiskey in the Jar' but it stops dead after just a few bars. If it's any consolation, I did worse for Lydney Town Band at the bandstand on Sunday afternoon. I accidentally deleted their whole performance from the camera's hard disc before dumping it to the main network drive at home.

I also recorded Gareth Wigg and his 'Songs from Broadway' but literally ran out of time to process the film. Sorry to both performers concerned but as for the rest, five out of seven bands processed for this week's news isn't bad going. There are some great performances below. Enjoy!

In case I have never mentioned it before, The Zebras are my favourite local rock band and they headlined Sunday evening at the Festival.

I filmed virtually their whole gig but have selected just five tracks to show here. I must admit that I chose my personal favourite five songs. In this clip you can see them perform:

'Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?'

'My Perfect Cousin'.

'The Ace of Spades'.

Click the centre of the image, left to one activate and then again to watch.

In this clip, you can see the band perform 'Basket Case' and 'Whiskey in the Jar'.

The band were aware that I was specially going to record 'Basket Case' for 'Wyenot News' and announced this before the performance. Unfortunately I had not started filming at that point.

Knowing that one particular song is going to be filmed is very nerve racking and the band were nervous for this one. They still made a great job of a great song though. My favourite:

'Am I paranoid, or just stoned?'

Don't know what on Earth they are talking about but the music's good!

Tina and I have known Will Killeen for many years now and it was great to see him at the White Lion Festival for the second year running.

Somebody asked him to play 'Duelling Banjos'. I don't know for sure but I am guessing that person was Tina as it is her favourite 'Will' tune. Will re-tuned his guitar and we removed the usual microphone for the sake of the camera.

Will plays major festivals all over the country and had just returned from Ireland, late the evening before, so it was especially good of him to perform at the White Lion Festival.

Fantastic performance Will. Hope you enjoyed your party afterwards and we look forward very much to seeing you again at the Prince of Wales on Saturday, 28th July!

The Supreme Awesome Dudes were just that on Friday night, when they opened the Festival. This band who play excellent acoustic roots music has quite a large following and many people turned up to see them.

The 'Dudes' set comprised many popular tunes including Tina's favourites, 'Jesse James' and 'I'm my own Grandpa' (Don't ask!)

One of the band had cut short his stay in Ireland by a day especially for the event and four of the group regularly attend the open music sessions at the White Lion, the next of which is this evening.

The Cliveden Set were lucky enough to enjoy some sunshine during their performance of classic jazz numbers on Sunday afternoon.

Joining Bleddyn Richards, Ray Martinez and the others is relatively new member of the band, Dan James of Miln and James.

The audience thoroughly enjoyed the Cliveden Set's performance.

If you would like to hear the bands performance of 'The Continental' click the centre of the image, left.

Jocelyn came from London to perform at the White Lion again this year and beautifully sang a great range of songs. Some of the songs were sung to backing tracks but Jocelyn also plays the piano and gave some fine displays of her talents

By clicking the centre of the image, left you can hear Jocelyn singing a medley of three songs, accompanying herself on the keyboard..

DO YOU HAVE A STORY FOR WYENOT NEWS?

If you have a local news item or story you can submit it here
or call Alan or Tina on 01989 763217

There is no charge for publishing either news items or What's On Events
This is a Free Service for the local community!

Wyenot News, 1, Hillview Road, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. HR9 7EY

If you would like to order prints from Wyenot News photographs, please click here.

Prints are only available for photographs taken by Wyenot News (Not of those which have been sent in by readers).

Prints of 'people' photographs are only available to those directly involved in the news event covered. i.e. I do not sell prints of people to the general public.