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. The late Friday music is back from 10pm to midnight, after changes in the pub’s staffing and hours with Covid-19.
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 and sometimes happens now, but it’s more a historical record (one young man seen with guitar now tours the world as a sound engineer, session musician and band member).
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. We also meet informally outside Rutherford’s micro pub when the weather is fine enough, our first session was on Easter Sunday in 2024. Small clip caught by Danies Walker, David Kilpatrick and Pete Gillespie with a bit of Rolling Hills of the Borders.
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 and we now have a Burns supper most years.
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