A Ramble Round Cherry Hinton

The Folk Tent at Cambridge is now almost unique in the Festival world. It is one of the few locations that you can turn up to guitar in hand and sign up for a slot. During the festival proper, the Tent is run in shifts by a number of local folk clubs. These all have signing times and you can stick your name down for your 15 minutes of fame. These 15 minute slots are interspersed with pre-allocated guest slots that are 30-45 minutes long.

The result is a highly varied day's entertainment that varies from the down right awful, to real quality. Some acts that take up these fifteen minute slots are well known in the folk world. Others return year after year for their slot. Most of the acts are solo performers or duos, but you do get the odd band to break things up.

The Folk Tent has its own bar, but it can sometimes be as quick to go round to the main bar. There was just enough time to get another round in before finding some seats ready for the start of the evening's entertainment.

The Thursday is slightly different in that all the acts are booked. This year the evening was kick off by the inimitable Peter Buckley Hill. Peter Buckley Hill is a singer of comic songs and raconteur that comes from the same tradition as Billy Connolly and Jasper Carrot albeit with his own distinctive style.

There is an eccentricity about Peter's dress that is more than matched by his songs. As with all good comedy, there are lots of barbs lurking just below the humour contained in the songs. Love, sex, drugs and peas are tackled with plenty of wit and verve. Requests from the audience are occasionally acceded to, but generally Peter keeps to the set list.

Peter Buckley Hill is a Cambridge regular, who gets a main stage slot this year, with this being the prelude, and the audience knows what to expect. Warm applause greets his material as well as genuine laughter where required. As well as being funny, Buckley Hill's songs also make you think. The material is of an anti-establishment nature, without being extreme and his set was well worth turning up for.

Cajun music has been one of the big booms in folk music in the last few years, so it was no surprise to see a Cajun style band on the programme. What was a surprise was discovering that The Cajun Mockfrogs hail from Norway and are Scandinavia's biggest Cajun act. Apparently they've played the festival for the last five years, but I had always managed to miss them.

They were surprisingly good. The sound was pretty close to authentic and had it not been for the slightly strange French accents, they might have pulled it off. Cajun and Zydeco were mixed without reference and there was even a washboard solo.

Much of the material came from the band's recently released debut, "Froggy Mountain Dew" which the band could be found flogging outside after the set.

Following the Mockfrogs, it was time to switch to the blues in the guise of the Backyard Band. The changing of the stage affording my erstwhile companion chance to nip out to the bar.

The Backyard Band are local to Cambridge and even include regular mainstage compare Mike Clifford amongst their number. The band are well polished and seem to have their stagecraft off pat, but for me it lacked life. The songs were a little too polished and at times a little too self indulgent. The polish started to tarnish a bit when what appeared to be impros were introduced. Most of the time these seemed as if they were added because the musician hadn't been heard for a while. This was particularly true of keyboard interventions.

All in all the Backyard Band failed to impress and the reaction of those around me showed I wasn't the only one. Fortunately, the best had been saved for last, in the shape of Shetland's Drop The Box.

Drop The Box are a triumph of age over experience. Where The Backyard Band had an aura of been there, done it, Drop The Box were fresh and vital.

Despite their youth, the band have been together three years and play a blend of traditional Shetland music and reggae/indie sounds. The net result is one of the few times a blend is better than a single malt.

The audience warmed to the band almost immediately bringing about an electric change in the atmosphere. The band started feeding off the crowd, the crowd were feeding off the band, the result was superb. An unexpected cover of "Psycho Killer" was dropped into the set to rapturous applause.

Without a doubt Drop The Box were one of the great surprise discoveries of the festival and if they don't get a prime slot next year on a mainstage there ain't no justice.

That brought the official music to an end for the night, but all over the site there were unofficial outbreaks of singing and playing. As normal, this carried on well into the night. As for me, slightly the worse for wear, I sought the comfort of my tent and crashed.

Friday