Sunday

Some old friends have shown up at Media Liaison and another mate from work has texted his location on site. It's going to be a busy day and it's going to involve beer/cider/spirits, delete as applicable.
It's a real switch on the main stage. We move from fiery Latin to slow thoughtful English folk from singer/songwriter John Tamms accompanied by Barry Coopes.
You can't fault the delivery, both have really good voices. The material is political, but there are quite a lot of the audience that weren't born when Thatcher was destroying industries and communities.
There's also some very good between song banter. "Heart Of Coal" really moved me. There are a lot of people in the audience that are obviously really enjoying it. I may be about to commit heresy here, but I wasn't in the mood to be brought down. The sun is in the sky and I want to surf the happiness wave.
I need to get back up to the crest and fortunately I can do that with Capercaillie. Ezio are on the other stage, I'm sure it will be nice and all that, but it ain't going to push the right buttons.
A bit of Celt is exactly what I need now and Capercaillie is just the band to provide it. They can keep it simple and crystal or hit it with some real dance, you never know what you're going to get with Capercaillie and that in its self is a major plus...
In many ways they were the band that developed Celtic fusion or acid croft; others went on to distil it down further.
Capercaillie do exactly what I want them to do and bring me right back up. They truly are one of folk's supergroups. It's difficult to think of another band that has so many top musicians flying in such close formation.
They play a little bit of everything, you can feel the mood of the audience change as the set progresses.
There is not a point where you feel you can afford to take your attention from the stage, there is so much happening.
It's not in the in your face up and at them move around the stage sort of way, it's a lot more about seeing where the combination of sounds are coming from and that's before you take into account Karen Matheson's wonderful voice.
Just after the snappers have headed down for the John Butler Trio a freak gust of wind tips a whole load of water out of the awning on the media caravan into the space where we gather. A couple of minutes earlier it would have drenched thousands of pounds worth of cameras.
As it is the gust just soaks the walkway and collapses the table where we normally work.
I really enjoyed the John Butler Trio, but the performance clashes with Van Eyken's only set on one of the two major stages.
If Capercaillie is a supergroup of Gaelic musicians, Van Eyken can be considered similar for English folk musicians.

Continued