Saturday 5

As I make my way across the field I make my way past a number of people taking advantage of the additional space they’ve got and are really going for it in a dance style.

The stage is still being set for Mindy, there’s a last minute change of plan. Mindy & her mandolin player are now going to perform standing up, rather than sitting down.

Eventually everything is sorted. Unfortunately it starts badly, the compere starts off by announcing the band, whilst their still completing their soundcheck.

It seems to throw a tired and emotional Mindy, she spends the first part of the set playing with her own sound. Out in the tent it sound great. Nothing wrong with it at all. Part way through the set Mindy puts her plectrum in her pocket to retune the guitar and then forgot where she’d put it.

It didn’t help that when she asked the audience if they’d seen her pick she was responded to by a very pantomimesque “It’s behind you”.

I was right about the intimate venue, Mindy seemed to expose her innerself almost to the level where you felt like a voyeur. Someone of Mindy’s age should be able to write such raw emotive songs from bitter self experience. It seems so unfair. On the other hand, you’re glad she can because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to perform like this.

Mindy is not a person whose emotional baggage consists of a few unhappy relationships with boyfriends, there’s a lot of pain and suffering here. It’s something few are able to turn into words, it’s incredible that Mindy can turn it into song.

That might give the impression that this is a bit dower. Far from it most of the time it’s about hope and battling through. Mindy Smith delivers a set that is at one and the same time, slightly out of control, bordering on haphazard and mesmerising.

It’s not just on her own songs, by the time she gets to the end of her stripped back version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” you almost feel you’re going to punch Jolene’s lights out if she even thinks about moving in on another girl’s man.

Before the song Mindy made an honestly heartfelt appreciation of Dolly’s songs and songwriting, taking the opportunity to deliver a fantastic sideswipe at Whitney Houston. Mindy also managed to take a pop at Gulf War2. I hope it doesn’t bring her the sort of attention it brought the Dixie Chicks.

Then it’s over and I’m back across the stage for what’s turning into an ‘other side of the pond evening’ for me as it’s time to go and catch Gillian Welch.

Gillian Welch burst onto the alt country scene back in 96, but unlike many of her contemporaries she’s managed to stay there. When she comes to the mike she mentions that it’s taken her eight years to get to the festival. The audience assume she’s been stuck on the M11/A14, pick your side of town.

Continued