Friday

Quebec bands have gone down well at Cambridge, including this band a few years back. It also brings home how well Canada support their bands when their away from the homeland.
They are definitely no exception to the rule. This is a band that encourages audience participation, nay positively thrives on it.
The band run through pretty much every trick in the book, the audience respond. There's a fair bit of dancing, when the band encourage a clap-a-long the crowd are there for them.
In short, this is the goodtime had by all. This may not be the best set ever delivered at Cambridge, but it was an enjoyable one and in the end that's what matters.
Stage 1 crew set about the changes for the next set. The compere comes out on the stage.
Everyone is expecting a lost child announcement. What happens next takes everybody by surprise. "Linda Thompson has regrettably been forced to pull out of this year's Festival due to problems with her voice" There is sense of quiet in the audience. A statement from Linda is read out expressing her regret at having to cancel.
The announcement goes on "We are also delighted to welcome Fairport Convention to the Festival for the first time in the history of the event."
The rest of what the compere says is lost in the applause. It says something about Cambridge that faced with the situation of losing someone like Linda Thompson, they can, at incredibly short notice, turn the situation around with acts like Fairport Convention.
Well, that's Sunday sorted, Friday night is still happening, the stage is set. It's time for Ireland's most loveable rogues, The Saw Doctors.
The compere's introduction was hardly over before the Saw Doctors were up, over and in your face. They are a band with so many influences, so many aspects to their sound.
The area down at the front was a sea of bobbing heads. The band and the crowd were feeding off each other's energy and the time the Saw Doctors hadn't had a six aside match to run off any surplus.
The boys are joined on stage by a couple of members of Dervish and switch to a slightly more traditional ceilidh style, but retaining a strong undercurrent of power.
It's a great way to finish off the Friday. The crowd start working their way back to their tents and the beer tent. The Offey's doing a roaring trade. Spontaneous sessions are breaking out around Cherry Hinton and to paraphrase Chip Taylor. "It's another Cambridge Friday night in this college town"