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Songs of The Sea on Trafalgar200/Fleet Review Day- South Parade Pier and The R.M.A. Tavern On South Parade Pier on Trafalgar200/Fleet Review Day (today - Tuesday) you'll have not only a fine vantage point for the fleet review (with a licensed bar!) but also a great opportunity to hear songs with a nautical theme, from top folk duo Tom Bliss and Tom Napper, Both The Toms arrived - independently - in Leeds in the early seventies, , and each having played around the folk clubs of the home counties, they quickly settled into the local circuit. . Tom Napper, thanks to his extraordinary prowess on a variety of stringed instruments, including tenor banjo, mandolin, octave mandolin and tenor guitar, soon built up a solid reputation as a performer and session man, working with such luminaries as Tom McConville, Gordon Tyrrall and Jez Lowe (in Dab Hand), Alistair Russell (later of The Battlefield Band), Tony Wilson, Rob van Sante, Gina Le Faux and currently Ciaran Boyle and Dave Kosky in The Idle Road. He's also done stints with a multitude of ceilidh bands and become highly sought-after as a teacher of music for special needs and festival workshops. Tom Bliss, although initially a folk performer, also wrote music for video and TV, and for a while deserted folk for rock, when in 1977 he formed the "new wave" band Pin-ups, managed by Pop Idol’s Pete Waterman, Bliss and Napper had mutual friends and knew of each other’s music - occasionally even passing on the stairs of Tom Napper's house, where ‘Country’ Dave Lee - the drummer in Tom Bliss's long-running band Pearl Divers - also lived, Bliss' enthusiasm quickly extended to other acoustic instruments (whistles, flute, harmonica, melodica, accordion etc.) and he formed folk bands such as Behind the Wall, Belladonna and Slide, but in 2002 he recognised that only a duo could provide the flexibility he needed to bring his songs to a wider audience. Then, in a call to Tom Napper about something else entirely, he uttered the fateful words “You don’t happen know anyone who might be interested in forming a duo, do you?” to which the reply was; “Well - now you come to mention it...” If you can't make it along to South Parade Pier during the afternoon of Trafalgar 200, during the evening "The two Toms" will also be performing together at The R.M.A. Tavern in Cromwell Road, Eastney. Both events are free entry,