When the audience got up and danced at the end of the night — a hitherto unheard of thing at the Bermuda Folk Club — it was clear something special had happened.Rod MacKenzie wasn’t in the room but his spirit surely was as an evening to honour the late folk club and pub singer climaxed with a seven-piece ‘jamming band’ playing hits he would have loved.Had he been present, the Englishman would probably have led the band. When he lived in Bermuda in the 1970s MacKenzie was a well-known performer at the club and various pubs, particularly the Robin Hood.Once a week on Sunday evenings he and other local performers got together as a jam band to knock out good time tunes. MacKenzie, who was still an occasional visitor to the Island, died at 61 on Christmas Eve, in Florida, shortly after being diagnosed with a cancer. At its first event of the year on Saturday, the folk club honoured MacKenzie in style — ending with a recreated jam band featuring musicians who once played alongside him.Guitarists Tony Hay, Joe Bento, Tony Brannon and David Skinner, together with bass player Jeffrey Marshall, harmonica/sax man Neil Burnie and drummer Ronnie Lopes, shared the singing as they powered through hits including The Eagles’ ‘Take it Easy’, the Rolling Stones’ ‘Honky Tonk Woman’ and Dire Straits’ ‘Sultans of Swing’ to the delight of the dancing audience. It was an impressive finale to a great night honouring MacKenzie.Earlier in the evening singer-guitarist Chris Broadhurst, an old friend of MacKenzie, told touching anecdotes about their times together and reflected the humour for which Mackenzie is well-remembered.Broadhurst brought along a MacKenzie record, ‘Sunlight Sunshine’, which was displayed at the side of the stage, and sang one of MacKenzie’s songs, ‘Gyrocopter’. When Broadhurst first performed it, back in the 1970s, it was the first time Mackenzie had heard another performer cover one of his own tunes.Broadhurst came across MacKenzie on May 17, 1976 when he looked in on a side bar at the Robin Hood Pub and saw him playing Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ to a room that was empty except for the bartender. That inauspicious opening encounter was something he and MacKenzie joked about for many years afterwards.Laughter erupted when Broadhurst told another light-hearted story of MacKenzie recording a Bermuda radio advert for Rego Furniture, explaining his friend thought he was going to make an easy $100 until the ‘real deal’ shrank, through a number of circumstances, to a mere $25. However, the advert continued to grace the Island’s airwaves for decades afterwards. Giving many a delightful trip down memory lane, Broadhurst sang the 30-second jingle.MacKenzie’s childhood home was North-East England, and two songs he regularly played were ‘The Guisborough Road’ and ‘The Land of Three Rivers’. Broadhurst perfectly book-ended his set of songs and anecdotes about his old friend with cover versions of these MacKenzie favourites.Former folk club president Val Sherwood started off the night with the folk classic ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, a song with a deep association to MacKenzie, who often sang it as his parting number when performing. Jeannie Flath turned in a delightful version of Ralph McTell’s ‘Let Me Down Easy’.Michael Cacy, highlighted his precision as a blues’ guitarist and singer, and ended his short set with a jaunty delivery of John Prine’s ‘It’s A Big Old Goofy World’. Prine was held in high-esteem by MacKenzie.Charlie Grange played electric guitar and turned in a well-observed cover of Elvis Costello’s ‘Alison’ — another song that featured in MacKenzie’s wide-ranging repertoire.Tony Brannon was joined by harmonica player Neil Burnie on one song and rounded off his solo set with an accomplished cover of George Harrison’s Beatles classic ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’.There was a welcome return to the club by Michelle Morfitt, the voice of Heroine Chic. Performing as a singer-guitarist, Morfitt’s distinctive, expressive voice captured the attention of the audience as she sang ‘Do Your Worst’, ‘Breath of Air’ and ‘Into the Unknown’.Also on form was Peter Haynes performing ‘Dark as a Dungeon’, made famous by Johnny Cash. While singer-guitarist, Andrew Westhead, paid homage to MacKenzie with a version of a song associated with North-East England, Joe Wilson’s ‘Sally Wheatley’.Ukulele-playing Mike Hind, about to embark on a string of US dates, injected his infectious sense of fun to proceedings with humorous asides and unexpected song arrangements. He opened with his own ‘The King’, went on to do a short cover of Beyonce’s ‘Put a Ring on It’ without changing the gender perspective, and wrapped up with a spirited version of Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’.As Hind left the stage, tables and chairs were removed from the front of the Spanish Point Boat Club hall to make way for dancing as the aforementioned jamming band ended the tribute night fittingly with thumping energy and classic songs that MacKenzie himself would have joined in with.