Saturday 6

I can see a sort of irony. She waits eight years to get on Stage One at Cambridge and her support band on their first visit to the UK beat her by a couple of hours.

She’s joined on stage by David Rawlins and they kick into the first number. As well as being a great singer and guitarist Gillian is also pretty good at the between song banter. We soon learn that she’s wearing her rhinestone dress by way of tribute to her British fans. It’s not something she wears that often these days.

I like Gillian’s music, but don’t know it well enough to know which songs come off which album, it’s obvious that there are a great many in the crowd that do. It’s often said that one way to tell a great artists is to check the sound of the crowd during a slow, quiet number, on that scale Gillian’s still right up there near the top.

This was a set that incorporated a number of country/bluegrass styles. It was like a Kellogg’s Variety pack without the second packet of Cocopops.

That left just one act to bring Saturday night to a close, Jimmy Cliff.

Ska and Reggae are not two styles that have had a lot of stage time and even after Jimmy Cliffs scintillating performance, you could still say that was the case. This was definitely not laid back dub, this was a performance delivered by a genuine showman.

Jimmy has been known to wait until the first few numbers have passed before joining his band on stage, that’s normally as part of a much longer show. Here with just 70 minutes he’s pretty much out straight away.

There is just so much energy on stage, matched only by the boundless enthusiasm. One second Cliff is at the mike, the next he’s duckwalking backwards the width of the stage. He’s moving all over the place, making great contact with the audience as the photographers in the pit desperately try to keep track of him with varying success. One of the snappers that has just turned up for Jimmy is heard to remark “I’m sure the b@stard ducked.”

There’s audience participation, one side of the crowd does their bit, then the other, then bring them together. There’s the hits. Lets be honest it was party time and I’m sure there were plenty in the audience that got back to their campsites to knackered to do anything other than sleep.