DESPITE the clear wording in the Ripon International Festival programme, one couple had turned up from Scarborough expecting to bask in Cole Porter’s songs from the shows on Wednesday.

Sid Griffin’s acoustic folk, bluegrass and Americana band have been known to do a cover version or two – more of which later – but they are yet to give the Coal treatment to the Porter songbook. Maybe one day, but not on their latest tour in support of their most recent album, Find The One.

The line-up has changed since the recording sessions, the latest tour introducing Kerenza Peacock on violin and vocals and Paul Fitzgerald on five-string banjo in a well grooved transition that stays true to Griffin’s alt-bluegrass principles.

At the core remains the interplay of American Griffin and Scottish guitarist Neil Robert Herd, whose tale of not following his farmer father on to the land, Farmers’ Hands, was a particular highlight, while Tali Trow, the heavily bearded doghouse bass player, had the sweetest voice of all.

Under low lighting in the Ripon Spa ballroom, The Coal Porters delivered two 45-minute sets of old and new and Find The One songs, ranging from dark-humoured drinking numbers to Griffin’s charming tribute to American punk pioneers The Ramones, The Day The Last Ramone Died.

As for the covers, Griffin prefers to say the songs have been “Porterised”, which sounds rather painful, but bluegrass suited Bowie’s Heroes, The Only Ones’ post-punk gem, Another Girl, Another Planet and Adele’s Rolling In The Deep (on which Kerenza had played on the original, incidentally). Paint It, Black ended the night, everyone joining in a hum to a fade. “You arrive an audience, you leave a choir,” said Neil. Now that is how to send everyone home happy.