A little bit of history
Track 1
Neighbourhood Sessions was started by Phil Jack as a place to perform his music under his Farsight project. Phil was a member of Neighbourhood Church at the time and this sowed a seed for Simon (the Neighbourhood Church pastor), a couple more events were arranged (featuring Keston Cobblers Club at one) and then there was a hiatus for a year or two.
Track 2
The next opportunity to host some live music when a friend of Simon's asked him whether he could host a singer-songerwriter called 'Lydia Cole' from New Zealand who was currently travelling around Europe (23 Sept 2018) . Simon agreed and due to the Ben not being available to run sound asked Steve if he would help. Steve agreed and was blown away by Lydia's music and how such calm and spacious music made for a special atmosphere in what is a lovely space. Not long after the fantastic 'Stables' got in touch to see if they could play a gig, which Steve was again asked to help at. Farsight were down to play support for this one. During the soundcheck Steve was playing some music by Lisbee Stainton, an artist he has seen live and Phil pointed out that he knew Lisbee, having played in her band at college. This set several thoughts going for Steve and the idea of putting on more regular gigs with potentially Lisbee being one of the first acts. Simon and Phil both ageed to help and the Neighbourhood Sessions as a regular fixture in the Beckenham calendar was born.
Track 3
The wonderful Lisbee Stainton became the first artist to play at the relaunched Neighbourhood Sessions in the summer of 2018, supported by Farsight. We learned a lot of lessons from this gig - that old parcan lights cause a lot of trouble for guitar tuning, that selling tickets is really very difficult. We started a mailing list, upgraded the facebook page and got the word out as far as we could and we had a brilliannt evening. Lisbee is a superb singer and songwriter, playing with an 8 strong guitar and drawing on influences from UK folk songs with more modern pop sensibilities. And as important as all that, she was encouraging and supportive and gracious to reccommend more artists to us. One of which was Elliott Morris.
Track 4
We were now getting into our flow and with gigs from James Riley and Riccy Mitchell we went into 2020 with several acts booked including Elliott Morris. Elliotts performance blew us away as he made his guitar make sounds none of us expected and charmed the crowd as he did it. His gig in the January of 2020 was unfortnately the last one we were able to put on for nearly 2 years due to the Covid pandemic. We'd started to record the audio with Aylwin Steele from the Tape Shed (formerly of Subfrantic Studios) from the James Riley gig, but this one was first one we had recorded and got enough video of to put something up onto YouTube - check it out and don't forget to subscribe!
Track 5
We started up again towards the end of 2021 with Midé, a semi-finalist on 'The Voice' and someone who had stepped in last minute to support Riccy Mitchell. It reaffirmed that not only do people want to be in a room lsitening to musci together, but that artists really want to play to them as well! By this time we had expanded the crew a little with some more photo and video support and were able to capture a superb performance. From here we have carried on trying to attract the best artists we can and creating a warm, intimate and friendly vibe for all.