Sunday review

Cambridge Folk Festival 2001

26th-29th July 2001
Cherry Hinton Hall Grounds, Cherry Hinton Road, Cambridge.

Friday review | Saturday review | Sunday Review

Another glorious day, but most people had hoped it would cool down after 3 days of solid sunshine (typical Brits never happy with the weather!). There was little shade in the main arena and it was very crowded with hardly a blade of grass left in sight. The campsites nestled within the shade of the trees offered some respite from the burning rays and during my travels I discovered a couple of oases tucked away from the steaming crowds. The first was the duck pond that provided a haven of water, shade and tranquillity. The second was the kids' paddling pool, which must have been a Godsend to stressed parents and hot kids. It was a superb facility and every festival should have one. The other bonus is the excellent bar tents provided by Charles Wells, a large Guinness tent and Beer tent with plenty of stock and masses of bar staff.

Back in the main arena the mood was mellow and fairly religious to start with. I arrived in time to catch The Campbell Brothers who belted out some powerful and emotive gospel sounds. I also briefly saw Slaid Cleaves on the Radio 2 stage and heard some lyrics with a biblical bent.

Back to the main stage Capercaillie performed what I thought were some funky folk numbers and they were followed by Rhonda Vincent & The Rage who gave a sterling performance considering that all their instruments had travelled on to another country instead of landing in England with them! They had managed to borrow some replacement gear from their fellow artistes and performed a top set of traditional sounding American folk/country songs.

The slight figure of Suzanne Vega walked onto the stage to rapturous applause. She did not disappoint her fans during a long acoustic set. She opened with 'Marlene on the Wall', asked the audience for requests and played the first tune called out immediately - Little Blue Things. She chatted to the crowd throughout the set with various little anecdotes, tried to sell tickets to her show the next night in London, introduced new songs from her album due out in September and closed with her two biggest hits, 'Luca' and a fantastic version of 'Tom's Diner' with no accompaniment at all.

The next act was Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings. An air of anticipation built up compounded by their late arrival on the main stage. Georgie Fame was on keyboards along with a host of extremely well established musicians and singers: Albert Lee, Terry Taylors, Beverley Skeete, Gary Brooker, Graham Broad, Frank Mead and Nick Payn and they blew the roof off with a tight Big Band/Blues/Rock'n'Roll sound. They played old songs, new songs (The Jitterbug) that sounded like old songs and co-written by Bill himself. Bill was the cool figure in the centre of stage, showing little emotion, avoiding the limelight and even teased us with the opening riffs of I can't get No Satisfaction. The crowd were mad for it!

I managed to catch the North Mississippi Allstars on the Radio 2 stage who were a Retro Blues band. The buzz from the crowd as they emerged dripping from the tent was that they had just watched one of the best acts of the weekend and from the little I saw of them I had to agree they were hot. I wished I'd got there earlier.

Back to the Main stage for the final act of the festival. Slainte Mhath were a young band from Canada. They were definitely the most attractive crew I'd seen during my visit to the festival - the pin-ups of folk. They were also very talented, playing lively contemporary folk music with a touch of funk (they even slipped Pick up the Pieces into their set).

As we wound our way out of the arena the peaceful, mellow crowd maintained their good humour. The Cambridge Folk festival is a superb event for chilling and offers music for a variety of tastes not just diehard folkies; long may it continue and let's hope it's popularity doesn't persuade the organisers to make it bigger and more commercial. Hey ho!