Thursday

Interview with Rory in the can, it's time to sprint across to the Club Tent. The number of people on site only emphasises the success of making the Thursday an official night. There's more people here than last year, but as they're spread across two venues and the various beer and food outlets, there's a bit more space and a great atmosphere.

I arrive at the Club Tent to a refrain of "#Cannabis, Cannabis, Cannabis, Cannabis, Cannabis, Cannabis Resin." Yep, Peter Buckley Hill is still on stage. Old favourites have been liberally mixed with newer material. It's been said that there are people that buy their Cambridge Ticket to see Peter Buckley Hill and view the rest of the festival as a bonus.

Peter's repertoire of original and somewhat surreal songs have entertained audiences for the best part of twenty years and still show no signs of losing any vitality. When his set comes to an end, he is greeted with one of the warmest rounds of applause for the weekend. Others may have had more volume, I can't think of any that were more heartfelt.
Audience demands for an encore are favourably received and time is made for one more number. It's easy to make stage changes for a solo artists, it's bands that prove the problem. Another song is dispatched to an eager audience, before Peter finally leaves the stage.

Cambridge Band Horace X prepare to take the stage. Horace X combine rhythm with Celtic sensibilities. I've always thought they're a band I must catch one day. Unfortunately, this was not to be the night. Another Cambridge based act in the shape of Eddi Reader and Boo Hewerdine are about to take to the stage at the Radio 2 Stage, so it's time to head back across the site to catch two of my favourite singer/songwriters.

I get there to discover the first surprise of the Festival. Joining Boo and Eddi on stage is guitarist Colin Reid. Eddi had met him at a Celtic Connections bash and thought he'd be a great addition to the Cambridge line-up. Boo, apparently, had only met him about an hour before the show.

Some Thursday only tickets had been made available to locals and Boo and Eddi had a very partisan audience. I'm a huge fan of both of their catalogues of work and was expecting this to be the highlight of the Thursday night, I was not to be disappointed.

Colin Reid gave the material an additional depth and there were only a couple of places where you could tell he was unsure where it was going.

It was during this set that I heard the only mobile phone of the weekend that could be heard during a set. Ironically it belonged to Boo who sheepishly switched it off just as Eddi was about to go into a rant.

It was one of the noticeable things about this year's festival. There were loads of phones on site, but everyone showed real discipline with them. Around the campsites, phones were ringing, but in the arenas, people had the decency to turn them off.

Eddi Reader is one of the most emotive singers I've come across. Her voice has the ability to genuinely move you. It's something that is true regardless of whose material she's performing. Some songwriters can write material that should take your heart and rip it to pieces, but somehow can't deliver the song, some singers seem let down by their material, Reader comes at you with both.

Add to that one of this country's most under-rated songwriters, in the slightly balding shape of Boo Hewerdine and you can only begin to start imagining the strength of the set.
All too soon it's over. The last 'thank you and good night' drifts off along with the still buzzing crowd and it's barely turned ten.

Thursday is the earliest finish of all nights. It started as an unofficial session in the folk tent and has grown from there. In deference to the local residents it finishes early to give them some solace before the weekend.

It also gave a chance for the FATEA crew to get together and have a few drinks together before the hard work really started. Eventually it was time to get on one of the buses back to Coldham's. It was at roughly this point I discovered another advantage of my parking spot.

The food tent at Coldham's also becomes the festival's latest running venue at night. Like the Club Tent, it's run on a sign up and play basis. There was plenty of activity still going on when I got back and a number of artists still to play.

After partaking of a late night/early hours snack I got back to the van to discover that I was close enough, with the back of the van open, to clearly hear the acts, but far enough from the stage not to hear a thing when the doors were closed. It was time to get a bit of kip ready for a hard day's graft.
Friday