Keeping the Irish theme going after Mairead, were Hard Way Home, an Irish duo consisting of Karen Turley and Naomi Campbell who opened with “The Mountains”, with Naomi on harmonica and Karen on lead guitar and vocals. Coming from the same town in Northern Ireland, they are currently based out of Liverpool. For the second song “It’s You” Naomi took over on vocal duties, and stomp box, for an uptempo folk song that sounded positively angelic when when both sung together.
Not too much was required to put a country spin on to the edited version of Beautiful South’s “Don’t Marry Her” with Naomi taking the lead. A couple of originals followed, the first from Naomi’s Day’s In Between” EP “Bye Bye Devil”. The next song, a ballad once again saw Naomi take to harmonica and Karen take lead vocals on the first verse “Wildflowers” a Dolly Parton cover for the second verse Naomi joined in.
The next song “New Strings on My Guitar” was sung as full duet, more of a folk song but charming nonetheless. From folk it was over to classic country with an almost Patsy Cline influence on “Lay With The Stars?” – the most classic country song heard so far over the whole weekend.
As they started a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” the inevitable question was going to be how they would cover the end section with just 2 acoustic guitars? In the end, the audience helped out providing the clapping on a version. Closing out with another future single “Chicago”,
a stirring song to keep an eye out for when released.
ng ballad. Hard Way Home will certainly be worth keeping an eye on during 2019.