Cruel Folk's Cambridge Folk Festival Diary, 2008
By Sean Holden
Ah yes, instruments. This might of course present a problem if you have a lot of gear. If you've ever seen us play you will be aware that Cruel Folk do indeed use a lot of gear. As we usually camp at the festival site it is tricky for us to get it in and out for a fifteen minute spot. However we are lucky enough to be able to store it in the centre of Cambridge, and over the years we have worked out a system. Here's how it works. Paul gets into the queue and Sean drives into town. Sean lugs all the gear into the car and back to the festival site, where he asks the stewards at the dropping off point very VERY nicely if he can drop off a pile of gear. He then phones Paul. Paul will have been gathering any friends we know at the festival from his place in the queue, and he sends them to the dropping off point to help Sean carry everything in to the Club Tent. This process is reversed after we play (although we often end up taking it over to the camp site at Coldhams Common and playing a short set there as well) so that the gear ends up safely stored in Cambridge and Cruel Folk end up happily back in their tent.
You can engage in this process and get yourself a performance spot at the Cambridge Folk Festival absolutely regardless of who you are – you have merely to be willing to perform three songs. A couple of words of warning however. The club tent may have anything from twenty to about a thousand people in it when you play, and how many people you play to is somewhat dependent on your luck in terms of when you get to play. The first time Cruel Folk did this we were lucky enough to follow the fantastic Brian McNeill and guitar duo Pete Smith and John Buckley, and as a result the audience was big. Big enough in fact that I think it's just about the most terrified I've been in thirty or so years of live performance. So: the step from local folk or acoustic club with just a few friends watching, to the Cambridge Club Tent might turn out to be quite a big one!
On the other hand, it is a brilliant learning experience. Once you start playing the bigger festivals one thing you will notice is that the stage managers and PA guys really know their stuff. In particular, time is of the essence, and this is a great way to learn two very important skills. First, how to get ready very quickly. You won't get time to sound check or to spend ten minutes attempting to achieve a perfect monitor mix – these are luxuries that you won't have until you're a lot further up the bill. You will need to play to a potentially large audience after just plugging in, taking a deep breath and going for it, trusting the sound engineer to make you sound good, which they always do as they're pros. Second, if you don't do this and spend lots of time setting up, the stage manager will not add time to your slot to take that into account: you will most likely find yourself unceremoniously turfed off the stage after two songs. Actually there's a third skill to be learned as well: you might find yourself fighting the conversation at the bar at the other end of the tent, so you have a good chance to hone your skills in making part of the audience take notice of you.
So, in 2008 Cruel Folk as usual turned up and queued, and raised a major sweat lugging equipment about. About half an hour before our allotted time we turned up backstage, tuned the instruments and got warmed up. About 5 minutes before time the stage manager came and asked us to take our gear around to the side of the stage and be ready. This is the scary bit: you can see the crowd – in fact you can pretty much feel their presence. Humans have evolved to regard being watched as potentially threatening, and this adds to the enjoyable sense of fear that comes when you're about to perform. The previous act finishes and the stage manager gives us the go-ahead. We get on stage, plug in bouzouki and guitar, strum to check they're coming back at us through the monitors, the MC introduces us and that's it: straight into three songs fuelled by fear, adrenaline, and the shear joy and euphoria of playing for a big crowd that's on our side because they all love folk music. It's a lot of work for fifteen minutes but what a buzz! Towards the end of the first song it gets even better: the heavens open and the rain piles down in sheets. This is good because the Club Tent is covered and the moment it starts to rain the audience swells with people trying to get into the dry. If it stops raining and the audience doesn't get smaller then you really know you've done well and kept their attention. Cruel Folk were pleased: it stopped raining and the audience stayed for the third song. We finished up the set, buzzing with more adrenaline from the very welcome shouts for more, and retired backstage to a well deserved bit of liquid refreshment.
All that was left to do was come down from the performance high and enjoy the rest of the festival.
This diary is accompanied by a video diary and some video of the performance which will appear on www.youtube.com later in the year. Tune in to watch the process for real.
Copyright © 2008 Sean Holden.