The Kelso Folk and Live Music Club’s home for the last decade or two has been The Cobbles Inn on Bowmont Street, off the market square. Changes in staffing and opening hours during Covid mean our old late Friday night pub session is, for the moment, no more.
Because The Cobbles Inn is a restaurant, children are welcome. It is a safe environment with a friendly atmosphere. The video below is how it used to be in the main bar of the Cobbles. As things change, and we welcome new faces, public bar sessions may be resumed at one of more of the other pubs in the town centre.
Other Sessions and Guest Nights
The club will, from time to time, organise sessions on another weekday night. These will be publicised to members/regulars. There are now regular Wednesday night and occasional Sunday afternoon sessions at The Cobbles, anchored by local musicians and open to all. We also meet informally outside Rutherford’s micro pub.
Club History
The club was started in 1995 when a Perthshire fiddle player arrived to work at Plexus and discovered no sessions were happening in the town. Mike Mustard, who has long since departed for England, advertised a meeting to set one up and it has grown on a weekly basis ever since.
The club was formally constituted in at the turn of the millennium when three years of sponsored ‘Seasons of Sessions’ brought in funds, donated by the members who anchored sessions round the Borders. These in turn enabled the first Kelso Free Folk Festival in 2003, supported by a council grant.
Since then the club has been self-supporting with a programme of visiting guest concerts, a regular weekly open mic and late night session, and frequent contributions to the cultural life of Kelso by taking part in events. An annual Festival was started in 2017 and is set to run for the foreseeable future. One notable earlier event was the club’s (second) 2008 Burns Supper
To let our organisers know if you are planning to come along as a new musician, singer or just to listen email kelsoflmc@gmail.com