Seeing the Fisherman’s Friends performance was an incredible look into the community of Port Isaac’s. Staying in such an idyllic seaside village was breathtaking in many ways: whether it was the striking landscape, or the picturesque cows grazing freely in the perfectly green fields. Staying somewhere can give you insight to many aspects of a place but unless you go out of your way I find that it’s very easy to miss out on the sense of community being a resident of the town comes with. Seeing Fisherman’s Friends really gave me an idea of what community meant to the residents of Port Isaac.
If we hadn’t been in Port Isaac for a few days now a couple of hours before the concert you would have expected the concert to be going on underwater. The tides here in Cornwall are massive when compared to anywhere else I’ve been. At high tide the water level is up right to the top of the seawall and no beach exists. At low tide its a much different picture, the top sea wall is at least 15 feet out of the water and the lobster boats are resting on the sand. The beach that becomes exposed at low tide was the perfect venue for the Fisherman’s Friends Not only were they performing in their hometown and birthplace of the band, they also had the perfect backdrop of the same lobster and fishing boats that they would use while they were doing the sailing that they sang about.
Before the concert my only real interactions with the locals had been a few short conversations with the cashier working at the takeaway. However, at the concert I feel like there may not have been a single resident of Port Isaac missing. Young and old this group of a cappella singing fishermen brought the entire community together in a way that I would like to imagine would only happen in this quaint town. I was happily surprised to see a few young children dancing around to the fisherman’s friends tunes and to see even more running around playing on the beach behind the set. This joviality paired with a vivid sunset and the backdrop of fishing boats created a truly perfect scene. The fisherman’s friends music was very easy to listen too and I can definitely see why they have risen to popularity outside of Port Isaac. They sang some classic songs like Drunken Sailor and many original songs that were all in their sailor tune style. I was most impressed by the newest member to the group, a significantly younger man who seemed to fit in perfectly with the rest of his band mates despite the age gap. He sang an original song that was very impressive and had a great voice. What I really liked about the addition of some youth was that it made me imagine a scenario in which new members are always being added to replace old ones, so that the Fisherman’s Friends would become an immortal Port Isaac tradition.
“a truly perfect scene” wasn’t much of an exaggeration
