Sunday

Having first played The Den and then busked the Guinness Tent back in 2011, singer-songwriter Mike Rosenberg marked his return to Cambridge Folk Festival with a repeat busk of the Guinness Tent, only on this occasion making his other appearance on Stage One.

Better known by his stage moniker Passenger, the intervening years have been good for him. Hundreds of millions of hits on YouTube, top five album, gigs by the bucket load and the odd bit of busking just to keep his hand in, well you never know.

Unlike a lot of solo artists , who will seek to reduce the size of a big stage by closing stuff around them, Passenger was taking a leaf out of the Joan Armatrading text book and being a light in the darkness.

There's a nervousness in his initial demeanour, concealed in a bearded smile, but there when he firsts talks to the audience. For a fraction of a second I find myself reminded of Harper Simon, thankfully only for a fraction of a second because as soon as he's into his first song, he's nailed it, aided by a fair chunk of the crowd singing along.

Cambridge is of the size where you can hide an entire audience in the crowd. There are a lot of unfamiliar faces in the front rows, some of them I haven't seen since Frank Turner. I find myself wondering if The Den is empty.

Certainly for the first three songs he finds himself very much at one with the crowd and comfortable in his own skin. I would like to have seen more, but I'd made a commitment to Mishaped Pearls to catch their showcase, so I pick up my camera bag and head to the Club Tent.

There is a feeling that if you use the phrase category defying you are either a: Not throwing enough categories at the band to make one stick, or b: The band are a group of genre whores, not really staying in one category long enough for it to be truly representative.

Rarely there is a third option, the band merge their sound influences to the point where they really are genre defying, welcome to Mishaped Pearls.

Their songs on record aren't always instant, growing along their length and over several playing's. I was intrigued as to how well that would work in the live environment and the answer was before than you might think, which is also down to the openness of a crowd to listen.

The result was a set in which Mishaped Pearls, both baffled and bewitched their audience, pulling them into their sound combinations and showed that music really can bring a knife to a gun fight so long as it's delivered with panache.

I say my goodbyes to the team at the Club Tent, knowing that I probably won't see most of them again until next year. Over the course of the festival, it's the Club Tent team that have the most changes to make.

Last band of the festival for me and a significant amount of others is The Demon Barbers XL, a full audio visual experience that includes both clog and hip-hop dancers.

As you can probably tell by the name of the band, its a big unit, with both dancers and musicians expending an awful lot of energy, with the dancers getting a reasonable respite as they are swapped in and out of the set.

It's loud, it's spectacular, I'd recommend it to everyone to see if it comes near by. It's also a great way to end the 2015 Cambridge Folk Festival.

I say end, they are the last official band, there's still the unofficial sessions, the social gatherings as we move towards the parting glass.

I really enjoyed Cambridge 51 seeing more of less was not only more restful, it also meant that I got to hear more, never a bad thing. The Brian McNeill Session was one of the best I've been too, more acts seemed prepared to mix it up this year meaning a load more unique experiences and always a festival highlight. I should have spent more time down at the Den, but I wasn't at Stage One as much either. Some great Americana this year, but one of my recurring highlights were the festival showcases, a fantastic crop this year. A glass to the year gone and here's to the next one.

Neil King