Saturday
Joan Baez is one of the few artists that have played the festival that has seen the shoreline of the duck pond from the duck pond.
All these years after her original success as the doyen of the New York Liberals, Joan Baez is still seen as a focal point for commonsense America, unfortunately two Bush Administrations have given plenty of opportunity to garner new material.
Her comments about the switch in music styles between Kate Rusby and Fanfare Ciocarlia showed that she had been listening to her follow musicians. She’s not sure of Fanfare’s name and asks the audience to help out. One shouts “Bloody Brilliant” and Bloody Brilliant they remain every time Joan mentions them subsequently.
Obviously Joan is not just a political focal point; first and foremost she’s a performer. You don’t survive forty off years in the music business without knowing your stuff.
Slightly bizarrely there appears to be a hot cup of cocoa waiting for her on stage, she takes a sip before diving into her first number.
The songs are interspersed with stories about how the songs became part of her repertoire. Writers and events are credited as she works through a whose who and a where and when of her life.
The style varies from folk to country and a lot of points in between. There’s a real atmosphere building in the tent, you can gradually feel people being drawn under Joan’s spell.
There are the usual requests for this song or that song, but Joan has her evening mapped out. If Bloody Brilliant had a loud encore demand, it was nothing compared to that which Joan Baez received. I honestly cannot remember hear such a loud ovation at the end of a set.
Joan departs and the stagehands descend, it’s time for a big shift of gear. The Saturday night on both of the big stages are going to end in party mood.
The Radio Two Stage is concluding with Shooglenifty, me, I’m staying at the Mainstage for Toots And The Maytals. Ironically Toots would be playing my home town at my favourite venue the next day, somehow I don’t think it would have the atmosphere that it will here, not that I’ll ever no for sure, umpteen thousand, including a fair number that had just bought Saturday tickets for this, were starting to crank things up.
Having just heard the response to Baez, it did make me wonder how many people that come to Cambridge to hear one band and end up listening to the range of acts available go away with a broadened taste and how many spend their time in the bar or getting henna tattoos.
The stage djs moving the mood. The sound of Madness hits the pa; a few balloons are bouncing around the audience. The announcer comes on, a quick ‘can x please make themselves known to a steward’ announcement is made. He drops backstage.
I notice one of the roadies give a thumbs up sign to the sound desk, the announcer returns and we’re off.
At first there’s no sign of Toots, the man who invented the term reggae, I’m worried that he might give the band the first number to warm up the audience; it’s been done before here.
Thankfully it’s not long before he joins his band on stage and we’re away. There’s time for another battery disaster, but this time a fresh new set go straight in.
From there on in until the curfew hits, it’s PAARRTTTYY time.
Toots controls the stage, I’m sure he covers every inch at some point. He knows his stage craft, leaning towards the audience, plenty of light changes. At one point I thought he was even going to go for a crowd surf, his didn’t, but you felt he could have.
It’s been a heck of a day and there’s still one more day to go. Elated and exhausted I join the throng of people gradually making their way back to their temporary and real homes.
It’s starting to rain, but no one really cares.