A Ramble Round Cherry Hinton

The 33rd Charles Wells Cambridge Folk Festival continues the  tradition of redefining the word folk. At Cambridge you are never more than 15 minutes away from something different. The sounds are a wonderful mix of countless folk styles from around the world as well as artists not normally associated with the word. Once again the festival had sold out in advance. What follows is as an overview of the weekend.

Arrived on site Thursday afternoon, discovered other campers had already laid claim to the usual Fatea/Junkkulture camping area. Relocated to a few yards away. A quick scan around saw that a number of the regulars were already on site.

The Jesus Tent (I thought it was Jesus Christ, or at the least Jesus Wept, but there you go) was in it's usual position, as was Not The Jesus Tent, just a couple of tents behind it. Not The Jesus Tent has become a growing phenomenon at Cambridge and really captures the live and let live attitude that so embodies the spirit of the festival. This year saw the appearance of Not The Jesus Tent stickers. It's all a bit tongue in cheek and as yet no sign of a virgin sacrifice. 

Cambridge Folk Festival has two campsites. One bang next to the site at Cherry Hinton, the other at Coldhams Common. The latter of the two with a free bus service running between it and the main site. Coldham's is more family orientated than Cherry Hinton, and now also has additional entertainment exclusive to it.

After a quick visit to Cambridge's famous toilets, almost guaranteed to have paper and regularly pumped out, it was time to head into the site proper to see what was here this year. Whilst on the subject of toilets Cambridge is one of the few venues that has a far greater number of women's to men's. Not that it matters, it's not unusual to find yourself flattened against a wall whilst entering the gents, by a woman cheerfully shouting, "My needs greater than yours!", before disappearing into one of the cubicles.

As a venue, Cambridge Folk Festival, is perfectly balanced, three stages, three bars. True, one of these bars only sells Guinness and Jamesons, but then one of the stages only deals in folk. With stalls and stages under going last minute adjustments a visit to the main bar was in order.

A Cambridge Folk Festival tradition is the festival tankard. A new design is produced every year, this year's cost a very reasonable £1.90. The first pint was duly delivered. I can't think of any other festival that still delivers it's beer in glasses, even if you have to buy the glass. There is a saying that you meet a better class of drunkard at Cambridge, very drunk but polite with it. For those that don't want to fork out for a tankard, there's the ubiquitous plastic beaker from which to quaff.

Charles Wells, the festival sponsor, have declared their Bombardier brew to be the official festival ale. That aside there's a range of beers and lagers available for consumption, even two different ciders on draught as well as scrumpy out the barrel.

A glance around shows that the usual array of ethnic and domestic eateries are on site, once again vindicating the decision not to cook. You can be pretty sure that at least one food stall will be running 24 hours a day. There's also a newsagent on site that seconds as a corner shop as well as the usual festival stalls. 

The site is starting to fill with a corresponding rise in atmosphere. In terms of size, Cambridge Folk Festival doesn't compete with the bigger festivals, it's 9500 crowd would be swamped by Glastonbury, but then it's not trying to compete on size. Where Cambridge does compete and where it wins hands down is atmosphere. This is a festival where everyone from whatever background mixes. People go to Cambridge to enjoy themselves and enjoy the music, not because it's a place to be seen.

Whilst the festival proper doesn't start until the Friday there are now a few acts in the Folk Tent on the Thursday night. Some of these are acts that might well be appearing in the folk tent later in the festival, others will be performing just that night, whilst still more are using it as a showcase in the hope that it will springboard them into the festival proper for next year, but that's still a couple of hours away.

Another couple of ciders follow the first whilst we wait for the music to start. I bump into some old hands and get into some talk about festivals past. It's another advantage of the size of Cambridge. You are virtually guaranteed to bump into people even if you've not arranged to meet them or didn't know they were going. If they're there, the chances are you'll see them sometime over the weekend.

Continued....