Saturday

From the Brian McNeill Session a dash across the site to try and catch the end of Stick In The Wheel performing their showcase in the Club Tent, a dash that ultimately proves successful.

There is a very London sound to the combo, performing as a five piece on this occasion. One of the things I like about folk music is that regionality and that you can now hear it globally.

Having released a number if eps, Stick In Wheel have a new album, From Here, due September.

I head to the Peoples Front Room for my first ever visit to that micro venue to catch Laura Victoria to find, frustratingly, that the stage is running significantly behind, something there is no excuse for.

It means that I'm not going out see as much of Laura's set as I would be to have done, through no fault of her own. It's not like there is a high turnover of artists on the stage.

Negative to one side, Laura starts her set with her version of a traditional song before mixing with more contemporary numbers, many drawn from her recently released debut album, Head Above Water.

Laura is part of a small but increasing group of people, cello singers and has an accompanists, Jo, with her.

I enjoy what I hear, but all too soon I'm heading off to the Club Tent to catch the Portraits.

Normally a duo, the band have expanded to a trio for today's performance, adding fiddle to the guitar, keyboard line up. The band are in the process of releasing a new album, "Lions And Butterflies" so they have a lot of new material that I'm hearing live for the first time.

As a folk inspired group, they're not afraid to mix politics into the set, both with a little and large piece. The addition of a fiddle gives the sound that little more depth and a little more for the vocal to work off, does it for me.

The Portraits perform songs of a social political nature and recently put out a single to raise funds and awareness around bone marrow donation. Enjoyed the set and its narrative range, but now off to something completely different, Skinny Lister.

Skinny Lister are the only band to have had a barrier in the Club Tent. It happened last year and the legend goes that the barrier was there to protect the crowd. Serendipity had in forming a nice little photo pit, yeah I know self, self, self.

By a coincidence, Skinny Lister are one of the bands on the "Undercurrent" Fatea Showcase launched just a few short hours ago, they have also recently launched a new and raucous album "Down On Deptford Broadway", which like their set kicks off with "Raise A Wreck".

If there is any set at Cambridge to let your hair down to, this is it. Skinny Lister are a real festival band, a sense of showmanship, loud, energetic and with a high octane, heavy drinking, party attitude. What more could you want ?

Well there's the crowd surfing with a double bass as Michael Camino ducks into the pit, dives over the barrier to emerge moments later being passed around at shoulder height through the crowd hold double bass aloft. The bass is passed back over the barrier and Michael continues surfing, well right up until lead singer Lorna, has jumped into the pit, nicked the bass and gone into the crowd herself for one of those never to be forgotten moments. We need a slow song to recover and most of us were just watching.

I catch a beer with some friends, so didn't really catch the Unthanks to the point where it would be fair to put finger to keyboard on their set.

Suitably refreshed I head down to Stage One for the first time today to catch Rhiannon Giddens who I've never managed to catch solo, but have a great photo of her poking out her tongue at me when she last played the festival as part of Carolina Chocolate Drops.

I say solo, but she's brought a formidable band with her, although there are times when it is just her. Solo or banded up, it's a heck of a set that gets delivered, one that fulfils the live promises made by her album "Tomorrow Is My Turn".

Her new sound is less old timey and more gospelly in nature, something that's also reflected in the narrative, but there is still plenty of people politics, not just in her own workings, but also in interpreting the likes of Odetta, Cline and Parton. Yep this was quite some set, very different to what had proceeded it and also what would be following it, but one that highlights the strengths of Cambridge right across the acoustic spectrum.

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