Treetop Flyers deliver one of the performances of Acoustica's opening day

Exeter's Acoustica Festival has grown a bit in both venues and audience numbers this year. I hope the event continues to grow year on year, as it's a great addition to the festival calendar, and a nice to end the summer with an indoor festival. The festival is well laid out housed within the various spaces The Phoenix has to offer. The event offers a decent standard of local acts, and a few musical gems over the events two days. There's not a duff performance all weekend, many of the acoustic acts are set firmly in the mainstream folk pop mould, and there's also a few more adventurous acts.

This year's event offered six stages of music including an outdoor 'Secret Garden Stage', good facilities, food, a bar, and plenty of seating and attracted an audience of all ages. Unfortunately on both nights the final afterparty event held off site suffered from rowdy background noise from those uninterested in watching the acts, however these highlighted just how much acts at the Phoenix were attentively received.

As I arrive on Friday night Devon teenager Emma Lauran is delivering covers including 'Skinny Love' on the bar stage, she doesn't seem phased by getting to open the festival, and it's a well balanced set, that gives us all a pleasing start.

Out on the Secret Garden Stage, fellow Devonian Maz Totterdell opens her reflective pop set to an audience of four, it's obviously a very secret stage. Following her openers 'Something Worth Catching', and new single 'Counting My Fingers' due out in January, the audience has at least doubled, and continues to grow. Her songs are captivating, and there's something appealing about her voice, and her delivery is good for someone so young. She's sure to be one to watch in the future. By the time she starts 'Heart In Your Pocket' she's being cheered. The undaunted teen presents her own material with well thought out lyrics, underpinned with acoustic guitar, at times her inner rhythm reminds me of Tracy Chapman. As, I move on to sample another act she sings, "Just time to say goodbye" - perfect.

All The Fires hail from Cornwall and the six piece all contribute to their material, they've drawn an impressive crowd as the opening act in the Auditorium. I missed them last year when they appeared at the festival, and deliver songs from their forthcoming debut album, as well as even newwer material like 'Where We're Bound'which may or may not be on the new album. The band are clearly on the up and the two female singers deliver the songs alternately and all six musicians make an attractive middle of the road Americana flavoured folk sound. It's impossible not to be reminded of a Stevie Nicks era Fleetwood Mac at times. The songs seem to be have Cornish backbone, and be built around love and tragedy, no bad mix. Highlights are 'Johnny' and 'Bys Vyken'.

Kristi Michele has come all the way from California, to bring us her 'Songs Across the Seaside'. The strong vocaled blues singer opens her set with the first and last songs from the album, 'The Knew is the Know' and 'Daybreak' which she explains are "like envelopes" encasing the album. She then opens the envelope to travels further into her latest album. They're interestingly wrought songs and I intend to explore the album further and hear what the songs sound like enveloped in a complete soundscape.

Back in the main Auditorium. Treetop Flyers, this year's Glastonbury Emerging Talent winners, and Acoustica regulars, are truly on form, having spent a summer at festivals honing their skills. Their set is the highlight of the weekend for me, and the following day various other acts ask us if we caught their terrific set. The band say that one of the things that attracted them back to Exeter and this festival was the chance to re-present their close harmong songs in a stripped down acoustic manner. To this end a double bass and mandolin are incorporated into their rich folk music is all the finer for it. They open with their first single 'Things Will Change', and a wonderful rendition of the b-side 'Become A Stranger' to their wonderful new single 'It's About Time' which is released this weekend. Both songs showcase the mercurial interplay and vocal harmonies. 'Rose Is In The Yard' showcases their tight guitar work, with the mandolin swapped for sweet bluesy electric guitar. A terrific set from the London band that on this performance deserve a high profile. Seatlle's Fleet Foxes have shown that it is possible.

The night's not even half way through and outside in the bar the energetic Erangey sisters from The Jesse Dansons now a four piece and joined by a beat boxer tonight. They're blend of beat-folk is lively, and they've attracted a crowd.

It's my first visit upstairs to the flower strewn Voodoo Lounge to see David A Jaycock who is when I arrive playing some ethereal instrumental pastoral tune. His delicate acoustic meanderings, and his soft whispered delivery makes his set a thing of elusive beauty. The staggered creaking delivery of his tracks make the audience unsure when the tunes are finished, a fact which seems to throw David too. I get there in time to hear 'Spilling the Beans at St. Neot' which is just entrancing. He sings 'Open The Gates' and sounds nervous, the sound bleed from the African drumming class along the corridor doesn't help.

Downstairs Marcus Foster is another of the many acts appearing over the weekend with an album, 'Nameless Path', out this month. The self depreciating guitarist has a great patter and delivers his tunes stripped down. I perticularly enjoy 'I Was Broken' his chuggy guitar style suits his soulful voice. He mentions that he's mentioned in the notes as saying his influences include Ed Sheeran, this amuses him, and he apologises to us if he starts rapping. Whilst not rapping his edgy, loud, electric blues guitar is perhaps a little wide of the 'acoustic' remit, he's more Tom Waits than Bob Dylan. His body inflections and and moves as he delivers sounds from his guitar show he's clearly into his music, and pretty quickly so are the crowd. Top track of the set has to be 'Tumbledown'.

Up in the Voodoo Room Savaging Spires prove to be something different. I like their disconnectedness and different take on the acoustic folk remit. Their music is dark and full of strange noises, effects, and amongst the noise is an inherent musicality. Often using distorted vocal hidden in the layers of sound created from cello, guitar, and bango, the trio evoke a fantastic psychedelic sound, one that doesn't quite get captured on their CD. Live there's an extra dimension. They play most of the self titled album with 'Cemetery Lounge', 'When The Devil Says He's Dead', and set closer 'Bending The Rules Of Time' my personal favourites. At times it feels strangely ritualistic especially during the Virgin Passages marked bodhran section. At some point some youngesters in the audience leave, I smile as though I can see the secret in the music, perhaps the music got too dark, I loved it. For fans of outsider folk bands like Current 93 these are well worth seeing live probably at ATP or Truck.

Beth Rowley is an altogether more mainstream proposition, although she says she has a croaky voice which actually adds a lot to tonight's show, deepening her vocal range. She has, she tells us, been working with some great people recently, and highlight of the set the gentle guitar enveloped, solitary horn tinged smokey song 'Brother' was written with Ron Sexsmith with Rowley singing it under one spotlight.

Meanwhile, as I trawl between stages the four piece Under the Driftwood Tree are playing in the bar. The four piece add a didge and play a few pleasant well known singalong covers. I'd like to have heard more but I end up on the terrace having a cigarette and listening to tunes from DJ Sketchy and talking to Savaging Spires, who remind me of an eGigs review which called them "lacklustre" in 2007. The DJs switch shift, and the new ones seem far less interested in the Acoustica remit.

I decide to go and see James Yorkston but he's reading from his novel (available in the foyer) that's twice in a week I've had the hard sell, with Flava Flave doing similar book plugging last weekend. Yorkston also starts dropping his Facebook profile, and I find both of those things off putting. So instead I return to the Secret Garden to watch the duo Lux Harmonium instead who have drawn a crowd to listen to their gentle finger-picking tunes and of course the harmonium itself. They're set seems far too short.

Back in the Bar cowboy hat wearing The Loose Salute have attracted quite a crowd for their surf folk rock. There's a fair airring of 'Getting Over Being Under' Frontman Ian McCutcheon the drummer with Slowdive and Mojave Three, quickly leaves his drumkit in favour of a more gentle percussion, and that makes for a more intimate gig.

My evening ends down the Bike Shed, a venue whose title Marcus Foster had found amusing, commenting that, "he'd seen Beyonce down the Bike Shed she was amazing there were seven people there and then she rode off on one." I'd never been to the venue before, taking an instant like to the re-fit smelling brick walled venue when I see it's selling bottles of Sandford Orchards' Shaky Bridge Scrumpy, which is more addictive than crack!

Alongside the scrumpy was tonight's festival afterparty headliner the John Fairhurst Trio who are anything but acoustic, they rock out and it's a pleasure to see that the crowd aren't as rough as those staggering around the Exeter streets outside. The trio can really play, balls out tight old school rock, their cover of Jimi's 'Voodoo Chile' is as good as the original (really) and their own songs are great too. A lady comes in and up to the bar, and asks me why aren't more people dancing, and I have no idea. Between songs they're a bit random, adding to that authentic festival feel, and as the scrumpy kicks in I begin to like their bluesy rock even more. What an end to the night, I hope to see this band at a festival again next summer.

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