Saturday
I'm off to the Radio Two Stage to drop into the Brian McNeill hosted Session.
The Session is great, like a virtuoso Club Tent. Artists that are playing the
festival do sort sets, often with guests and musicians from other bands.
I
know I'll be dropping in and out during the course of the afternoon. When I get
there blues guitarist and songwriter Jonny Dickenson's got the stage. Close your
eyes and you could be on the edge of the delta, a good start indeed.
Xose Manuel
Budino, the Galacian piper is up next. Unexpectedly he starts of with a vocal
piece from one of his band and on the flute rather than the pipes.
He goes
for the pipes for the second number with a dagger dagger rhythm provided by both
guitar and tambourine.
Criminally short at two songs that was it, but he
would be playing again later.
Whilst the stage is being changed, there's time
for a vocal interlude with three singers described by Brian as the Scottish
Andrews Sisters, consisting of Annie Grace, Corina Hewitt and Karine Polwart.
The change takes just one song.
An audience member describes jokingly
described the next act as 'the least pretty part of Blazing Fiddles :-)'. I
thought it was harsh, but he called fair comment. Ok Catriona wasn't there but
I'm told the one in the middle was cute.
Musically they are beyond question.
There's a reason why they've been described as revitalising the music scene and
I'm listening to it. What more can you say? Top draw.
I'm off to the Club
Tent to catch the very much up and coming Megson.
Live the band live up to
the quality of their debut cd. They were the first band to get 5 stars on the
Cambridge and Beyond website.
They start off with an autobiographical song
about moving from Middlesborough to London, one smoke to another.
This was
followed by the words of Grace Darling set to their own tune. This was
definitely worth the trek across the site. Megson deserved a bigger audience, if
it goes as it should, maybe next year they'll get one with a booked
slot.
There's time to have a quick chat with the band backstage before
another dash across the site to get back to the Session. I'm there in time to
catch the English Acoustic Collective. They're just finishing one number, but I
manage to catch the whole of their last collection of tunes.
These have a
Morris Dance theme, Morris is undergoing a bit of a revival as it's being linked
to the resurge in England's Pagan traditions. Less in your face than it's Celtic
dance counterparts the tunes tend to build into your consciousness rather than
kick their way in.
The Celtic spirit
fights back with the next band on the stage Lunasa. The band kick in with a
combination of reels. As is traditional the band namechecks the originators of
the tunes, where they know them.
There's a mellowness about the sound that
allows it to float around you in a way that more agression just wouldn't be able
to achieve. The softer approach seems to catch more of the mood of the day so
far.
The bass player, former Waterboy Trevor Hutchinson looks a bit like a
younger Christopher Lee. If Christoper Lee played bass it would be in a
band like this.
That just left the final song by the mass gathering of all
the artists still hanging about for a collection of reels. In fact it looked
like the was about forty odd artists on stage at the end. Once again apologies
to the back row.