The Rusty Tubs at Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2026
August 2026 saw The Rusty Tubs make our first appearance at Shrewsbury Folk Festival.
We’ve sung at plenty of shanty festivals over the years. We know the drill: find the pub, find the beer, start singing loudly and see what happens.
Shrewsbury Folk Festival felt a little different.
This was comfortably the biggest folk festival we’d ever been invited to, with a programme packed full of seriously talented folk, world music and Americana musicians from across the world. We were turning up as the rowdy shanty lads from Gloucestershire with two sets, our first-ever shanty workshop and a pair of late-night singarounds in the Berwick Bar.
We were excited, obviously, but there was also a little bit of wondering how we’d fit in. Would a crowd of seasoned folk enthusiasts take to The Rusty Tubs? Would anyone actually turn up to the workshop? And, perhaps most importantly, could we convince a bar full of folk musicians to spend their Friday and Saturday nights shouting songs at each other over several pints?
There would be rain, a surprising number of Canadians, and some seriously good times! And it all started almost immediately after we arrived.
Friday: Straight Off the Road and Onto the Stage
We travelled up from Gloucester on Friday and, having barely arrived at Shrewsbury Folk Festival, immediately headed over to the Sabrina Stage for soundcheck.
From the off, we were in very good hands. The sound team and stage crew were absolutely excellent, getting ten Rusty Tubs organised, miked up and sounding vaguely professional with suspicious efficiency.
Knowing the level of perception the average Rusty Tub possesses, Mark points them to their green room!
Then it was time for our first-ever Shrewsbury set.
Looking out from the stage, it was a little daunting. This wasn’t a pub full of people we could bully into singing after a couple of pints; we were looking at one of the larger audiences we’ve performed to, packed with seasoned folk festival-goers who know their music.
Fortunately, subtlety has never been our strongest suit.
We kicked off with Rowdy Soul, settled into our stride pretty quickly and had an absolute blast. The audience were fantastic, joining in enthusiastically and giving us exactly the sort of reception we’d hoped for. By the time we finished with My Son John, any lingering nerves about how The Rusty Tubs would go down at a festival like Shrewsbury had pretty much disappeared.
Wanting to avoid putting up a tent in the middle of the night after too much cider, Matt disappeared off to erect the rather enormous tent he’d brought with him. The rest of The Rusty Tubs demonstrated the sort of brotherhood, loyalty and mutual support for which we are famous by deciding they would rather sleep in their cars than help him. So they went to watch some bands and get food instead.
Eventually, with the tent standing and Matt reasonably confident that he wouldn’t be sleeping underneath the stars, the band regrouped to watch some music.
One of the acts we particularly wanted to catch was Rum Ragged, who we’d enjoyed chatting and laughing with in the green room at the Sabrina Stage. Their set was absolutely cracking, with fantastic music and good humour. But watching a group from Newfoundland was especially enjoyable for Mark, our resident Canadian, and it wouldn’t be the last time this weekend he’d be hanging out with fellow Canadians!
After their set, attention turned towards the part of the evening we were probably most nervous about: The Berwick Bar Jam. Now, shanty festivals are familiar territory for us: Put us in a packed pub, add beer, and ask us to start a singaround and we’re ready to rock. But this was a major folk festival packed with experienced singers, musicians and people who had been attending events like this for years. We were the new lads, and there was a definite moment of wondering whether a bunch of rowdy shanty singers from Gloucestershire were really the people who should be trying to get everyone started.
There was only one way to find out. Matt kicked us off with Randy Dandy-O and our concerns evaporated almost instantly. Within moments the room was joining in, and it became very obvious that Shrewsbury enjoys a loud, beer-fuelled evening of communal hollering every bit as much as any good shanty festival crowd.
Songs started coming from around the room, people joined in wherever they could, and the whole thing very quickly became exactly the sort of night we’d hoped it would be. For all the nerves beforehand, by the end of the evening we felt considerably more at home.
One moment from Friday night also reminded us that these songs can carry rather more weight than the usual beer, shouting and bad behaviour might suggest.
Harry from The Endings was overcome hearing the shanties, which brought back memories of his late father singing them. Daevid gave him a big hug while he let it all out, and afterwards Harry thanked us for giving him that emotional release. It was a pretty powerful reminder that, for all the noise and silliness around them, these old songs can become tied to people, families and memories in ways you don't always expect.
There are a things The Rusty Tubs love, a good song, a good drink, and good company. Berwick Bar had all that and more!
Precisely what time everyone eventually made it to bed is difficult to establish.
There had been beer.
There had been cider.
Records become unreliable.
What we can say with considerably more confidence is that The Rusty Tubs were noticeably quieter the following morning.
Saturday: Rain, Ponchos and a Very Full Workshop
Along with some serious hangovers, Saturday morning greeted us with absolutely atrocious weather. The rain was relentless, umbrellas appeared, ponchos were dragged out, and The Rusty Tubs spent a fair amount of the morning scurrying between whatever bits of shelter we could find.
We also made the unfortunate discovery that the gazebo we’d brought to keep our carts of gear dry was considerably less waterproof than we’d imagined. Cue a hurried rescue operation, with everything rapidly shifted into the enormous tent Matt had put up the previous evening. Which suddenly made everyone rather more appreciative of the tent they’d refused to help him erect.
Eventually we dragged ourselves back out into the rain and headed over to the Village Stage for our second set of the festival.
The Village Stage was a rather different setup from Sabrina. Instead of performing towards an audience neatly arranged in front of us, we found ourselves surrounded by a fantastic crowd of folk fans. So we formed a horseshoe to face as many people as possible.
It mostly worked, although despite our best efforts, some sections of the audience still received considerably better views of our bottoms than others. Fortunately, they didn't seem to hold it against us.
As a tribute to the late Tim Curry of Muppet Treasure Island, who had died just days earlier , we opened the set with Shiver My Timbers. The clouds parted, and the rain eased; amazingly, the weather remained tolerable for the duration of our set. We're choosing to interpret this as divine approval.
The set went brilliantly. The crowd were warm, enthusiastic and more than happy to join in, and we left the Village Stage thoroughly pleased with ourselves.
There wasn't much time for basking in it, though, because next up was something we'd never attempted before: The Rusty Tubs' first-ever shanty workshop.
We hauled our gear across to The Hub and started getting everything ready. Which was when Nick made an important discovery.
Nick is far too delicate for camping, so he opted for considerably more civilised accommodation than the rest of us. Now, unfortunately, it was in that distant hotel room where the notes for the workshop were located!
What followed was a rapid group effort to reconstruct the workshop from memory, work out who was doing what and generally give the impression that this had all been meticulously planned.
Then somebody looked outside and noticed that the queue went around the corner! In fact, so many people wanted to attend that we unfortunately had to turn a significant number away once The Hub reached capacity. Suddenly the forgotten notes felt slightly more consequential.
In hind sight, it’s unclear if the people lining up were looking for the shanty workshop or looking for somewhere dry.
Thankfully, once we got started, everything clicked. Nick led the room through shanties, choruses and the wonderful business of getting a large group of strangers singing together. Paul gave history lectures.
By the end, we had reached The Last Shanty by Tom Lewis, complete with all the actions that Matt despises with a passion entirely disproportionate to some harmless arm movements.
Then, for Nelson's Blood, Nick divided the room into three groups and taught each one a different harmony for the chorus. Somehow, it worked: a packed room of festival-goers who had walked in for a shanty workshop were suddenly belting out a four-part chorus together, and it sounded fantastic.
Considering we'd discovered fifteen minutes beforehand that a substantial portion of the plan was sitting in a hotel room somewhere, we'll call that a success.
There was just one thing left on our Shrewsbury programme: one final night in the Berwick Bar.
Saturday Night: The Sing-around Takes Over
After a chance to recover, find some food and enjoy a couple of cheeky beverages, we headed back to the Berwick Bar for our final shout of the festival.
This time, though, we knew what we were walking into.
Several people from Friday night had returned for round two, joined by plenty of familiar faces from our sets and the workshop earlier that day. After spending the weekend wondering how a bunch of rowdy shanty singers from Gloucestershire would fit into Shrewsbury, it was rather nice to walk into the bar and realise that people actually seemed pleased to see us.
We kicked things off with Rowdy Soul, but it didn't take long before singers started emerging from around the room and taking over.
Strangers broke into union and protest songs, quickly finding themselves surrounded by a roomful of voices joining the choruses. At another point, one woman took command of the room with a succession of powerful feminist anthems. Our new friend, Harry from The Endings, who had been so moved by the singing the previous evening, was now up leading some hard-hitting traditional shanties himself.
It was exactly what we wanted the Berwick Bar Jam to be.
Friday night had required that little moment of courage to get things started. On Saturday, the session very quickly developed a life entirely of its own. People were clamouring to lead songs, new voices kept appearing from different corners of the bar and, as soon as one song finished, somebody else was ready with the next.
We'd started the weekend thinking our job was to lead a sing-around.
By Saturday night, our job was mostly to stand in the middle of it, sing very loudly and occasionally remember to drink our beer.
And we couldn't have been happier about that.
Eventually, though, even the best sing-around has to come to an end, and we had to choose our final song of Shrewsbury.
Dolly Parton had passed away only days before the festival. Dolly's music has brought an enormous amount of joy to all of us over the years, but perhaps even more inspiring was the kindness and generosity she showed throughout her life. So, for our last song at our first Shrewsbury Folk Festival, we raised our voices together for the legendary Dolly Parton and belted out 9 to 5.
It wasn't a shanty, and nobody cared.
Derf & Richard try recover after a heavy session in Berwick Bar
First, But Not Last
By Sunday morning, the worst of the weather had passed, the singing was done, and most of us were running on a fairly questionable combination of caffeine, festival food and whatever reserves of energy we had left.
But one of the things we’d come to appreciate most about Shrewsbury was that the festival wasn’t only about the time spent on stage.
For Mark, one of the highlights of the weekend was meeting so many other Canadian artists. Alongside Rum Ragged, we’d also crossed paths with Pressgang Mutiny and Kellie Loder. Mark and David had watched Kellie perform on the Pengwern Stage on Saturday evening, then bumped into them again in the artists’ tent on Sunday.
What started as a chat turned into grabbing a crêpe and wandering around the festival together. That sort of thing seemed to happen a lot at Shrewsbury: people you had watched on stage an hour earlier would suddenly be grabbing food with you, sharing a drink or wandering around the site having a natter.
Having spent the weekend surrounded by some exceptional musicians, Richard came away inspired and bought himself a tin whistle at the festival! He’s been learning to play it since getting home and, true to form, he has already managed Concerning Hobbits from The Lord of the Rings, because apparently starting with a normal folk tune would have been too straightforward.
We also asked Nick what his favourite part of the festival had been. His answer was: “Kissing Mark and Dave on the lips.” So there’s that.
After a weekend with The Rusty Tubs, Mark was glad of some intelligent conversation.
More seriously, Shrewsbury was everything we had hoped it might be. We played to some of the biggest and most knowledgeable folk audiences we’ve encountered, ran our first-ever shanty workshop to a packed room, made new friends, discovered new music and got to experience two wonderfully rowdy shouts in the Berwick Bar.
Most importantly, though, we arrived wondering how The Rusty Tubs would fit into a festival like Shrewsbury.
By the time we left, that question had been answered.
Back after our very first set, our compère had asked how many years we’d been coming to the festival. When we told her it was our first, she replied:
“Well, it definitely won’t be your last.”
After the weekend we’d just had, we sincerely hope she’s right.
