Saturday
I start off by heading to Stage 1 to catch, yet another trio, the North Mississippi Allstars, making their second appearance at the festival and bringing their particular blend of hard rocking southern blues to the green fields of Cambridge.
The North Mississippi Allstars put on quite a show. The band are a classic power trio, percussion, bass, guitar with a few other instruments thrown in, including a bass drum and beer can guitar, which I'm sure has a proper name, but looks like it's been built from scrap.
They are a band that play a set with a lot of attack, like Skinny Lister, they also have a reputation for going into the audience, which they may well have done after I left. During the opening numbers they were using energy like it was going out of fashion. They are a band that may not be everyone's cup of tea, the showman elements do sometimes overpower the musicality, but to my mind they are definitely entertainers.
As I said it's a little of a lot time so I'm off to Stage 2 to catch the remainder of Lunasa's set. I've seen Lunasa a number of times over the years and they are one of my favourite Celtic inspired combos. They are a band that have always had an evolving line up and this is the first chance I've had to see the band since they've been joined by guitarist Ed Boyd, which it turns out I still need to do as guitarist for the festival was Shane McGowan, no not that one, check the lack of a.They are a band whose musician line up includes a heck of a lot of well known outfits.
The quality of the musicians is a constant right across the years and the current version of the band is no different. They only play instrumentals and they really put everything into them to ensure that there is always going on, changes in time signatures, tune styles, with the whole range of instruments getting featured throughout the set.
Having seen Sarah Jarosz perform solo on Stage 2 earlier, I'm really looking to hearing her joined by fiddle player Alex Hargreaves and cellist Nathaniel Smith. They gather bluegrass like in a small semi circle in the middle of the stage, though individually miked up.
It's not fair to compare the two sounds, they are performed in a different way. Bluegrass is a music that benefits from the interaction of the strings, plucked, bowed and strummed, especially when it works alongside a rich voice like that of Sarah Jarosz, just close your eyes, feel the humidity and you could almost be in bluegrass country, a great way to while away a sultry afternoon.
Time for my second Full English of the day though this time of the aural rather than edible variety. I've headed back to stage one to see a great folk ensemble, that includes the likes of Martin Simpson, Fay Hield and Nancy Kerr amongst their number.
Formed to promote the digitisation of the various traditional music collections at Cecil Sharpe house, home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. I was fortunate enough to be at the launch and have caught them since, but I think I can honestly say I don't think I've seen them perform better. They have relaxed into being a band, rather than a collection of musicians, they are also holders of the current Fatea Tradition Award.
They're performance shows just how much variety there is in English traditional music and that there is a lot more out there than "Silver Dagger" and "The Lusty Smith". It is great to hear the music of this country arranged and performed so eloquently and it reminds us why folk music is a living tradition, not a museum piece.
It's unfortunate, but also in the nature of festivals, that two bands I really want to see are on at the same time, about half way through the set, I leave one Fatea Award winning to head to Stage 2 to catch one of the more innovative and increasingly influential bands in contemporary acoustic scene, The Moulettes.
They are one of the few bands that feature a bassoon amongst their instruments as well as autoharp, which, like the shurti box, seems to undergoing a small revival. The sound is a build up of layers, vocally, as well as instrumentally drawing together the likes of Kate Bush and Pentangle.
The band revolve around lead singer and cellist Hannah Miller, but they really have a massive width not only in their sound but the way they arrange their material, at times more dance like in nature, contrasted with more traditional, almost gallery folk. The set, as you would imagine, highly dynamic.
It's time to make my way back to the Club Tent for the first time since this morning. I was hoping to get some food on the way, but the size of queue puts that off for the time being, part of the flexibility of a decent full English breakfast. I'm in for a stint of Scottishness, both traditional and contemporary.
I'm starting off with a couple of showcases in the Club Tent with the first from Adam Holmes And The Embers, who released their debut album, "Heirs And Graces" earlier in the year, though Adam also has recording experience with his former band Rura, an act that also saw him pick up a Scottish Trad Music Award.
Solo Adam is more contemporary in his sound, with a sophisticated pop sensibility being quite prominent in his sound, though without losing a Scottish edge to it that reaches beyond his accent. He's got a good sound, one that's easy on the ear, but which doesn't compromise narrative to get it there.