Swarb's Lazarus, Lowdham Village Hall

Legendary English fiddler Dave Swarbrick has a new trio called Lazarus with Kevin Dempsey and Maartin Allcock.

Better known as Swarb, he received a new pair of lungs in October 2004 after years of debilitating emphysema. Famously, the Daily Telegraph printed his obituary in April 1999 which Swarb regularly signs when fans produce a copy.

Now he is able to play live again, his first gig was Friday night in Lowdham Village Hall, and we were there. Sonia spotted the gig in the Nottingham Evening Post and I managed to contact the organisers Farnsfield Acoustic who said they would save us a couple tickets on the door.

When we got there, the Hall was full of people who had brought their own drinks (no licensed bar in the hall). It was a no smoking venue, especially appropriate given Swarb's lung transplant.

By the time the lights went down, the Hall was packed. Lazarus came on to affectionate appaluse and cheers for Swarb's first live gig since the transplant. They settled down to play two sets, intermixed with Swarb chatting about the songs, who wrote them and where he learnt them. There were also a couple of bad jokes (see below) and banter between the band members.

It was clear that this was their first gig, as Swarb said; "it's alright practicing but now we're up here we're committed, and maybe I should be". As they started a group of four tunes, Swarb would wish the others good luck and hoped to meet them at the end...which they did. At one point he extended his chat before a group of songs and after a couple of minutes jokingly admitted that he was only doing this because he was trying to remember how the third tune went. His fiddle playing was vigorous and the tunes soared around the hall.

The interval came too soon, but Swarb could be found at the back of the Hall signing CDs. We bought a couple and he signed them to each of us. Lazarus CDs should be available later in the year as they are recording their gigs.

The band finished to a standing ovation, having decided that they wouldn't leave the stage to come back on for an encore; "we're too old for that" was the comment from the stage. But not too old to play great music in front of an appreciative audience who welcomed the return of a fiddling legend.

And the bad jokes?

A 3 legged dog walks into a western saloon. It's wearing a cowboy hat and guns in it's holsters. The piano player stops and everyone looks round as the dog speaks..."Ah'm a-lookin' fer the man that shot mah paw"

Two ships collided in the English Channel, one full of red paint and one full of blue paint. The crew were marooned...

Don't blame me, the last one was Swarb's.