Co-Operative Cambridge Folk Festival
Friday
Next up is Buffy Sainte-Marie. Whilst the stage is being reset, it's time for the stage djs to alter the mood from the previous acts and get the audience prepared for the next one. Alan Leary and Bob Paterson carry out the role on Stage One. Next time your between acts give the background music a check and see how well they do their job.
The stage crew do a fantastic turn around, I think it's the biggest change over of the festival so far.
Buffy Sainte-Marie is an incredible woman who has become an inspiration to many. She survived being blacklisted in sixties America, went on to get a Grammy, an Oscar and a PHD. Along the way she also wrote "Universal Soldier" and was involved in a number of films, including "Soldier Blue" in addition, she appeared on Sesame Street for five years .
She's just released album number seventeen, her first for fifteen years, "Running For The Drum". She's also got huge stage presence you. It's not just the visuals, bright white jacket, dark hair, you can almost feel her filling Stage One with her being as well as her music.
It's quite a way to start, backed by two charismatic backing singers, this is a set that is going from nought to sixty in a couple of seconds. Driven by percussion influenced by original American rhythms, it was one heck of a start to her set and a real declaration of intent.
Buffy straps on her guitar for the next number. It's a set full of energy, she's not growing old gracefully, belying her sixty seven odd years and really going for it.
Her next number is something very different. The instrument she is based around the hunting bow and used like a giant jews harp, holding the wooden bit in her mouth and rhythmically twanging away on the string. It's a strange sound and the unbelievably starts singing with the bow still in her mouth.
Buffy has always had human rights at the heart of much of her music. Songs about personal and social injustice, the ills of big business politics, particularly in the US. All in all a great left field set, in both meanings of the phrase.
It's time for a bolt across the site, Brian McNeill is rumoured to be having guests on at the end of his set, Ruairidh MacMillan, Paul McKenna, Ewan Baird and Adam Brown.
I get there in time to catch Brian McNeill inviting on stage a rising star of the Scottish piping tradition and definitely no slouch with a whistle either, Lorne MacDougall. Brian always includes a rising star of Scottish music within his Friday evening set. As per usual, there's a very big crowd squeezed into the Club Tent to see Brian, which means that Lorne is going to get maximum exposure.
Brian is proud of his Scottish roots, he's launching his new album, "The Baltic Tae Byzantium" at the festival. It's the sister album to "The Back O' The North Wind" and tells of the Scottish emigrations eastwards. Apparently there are two hundred villages with Scots names in Poland alone. I'm fortunate enough to be there when he plays the title track.
One other constant of a Brian McNeill Friday, is that somewhere in the evening we are going to get to sing-a-long to "Join The Union". I was a bit late getting there, but fortunately it's been left for the tail end of Brian's set this year.
It's a song Brian sings with such passion, there's always an alteration to a verse or two, but the refrain of standing together has never been more important than in times like these.
Brian is a political songwriter and proud of it. "Join The Union" builds the crowd up as they sing the repeating line, with Brian haranguing them. With the crowd whipped up it's time for the final number. True to the rumour, Ruairidh MacMillan, Paul McKenna, Ewan Baird and Adam Brown join Brian on stage, together with Lorne MacDougall.
Two percussionists, guitar, driving fiddle and bouzouki and a hyped up audience create one of the most frenzied three and a half minutes I've seen on the Club Tent stage in all the years I've been coming to the festival. I'm knackered by the end of it and I'm only taking photographs.
It's decision time again. The next two acts on both of the main stages are playing their only slots at the festival this year. Stage One is offering Bellowhead and The Zutons. Stage Two Rupa & The April Fishes followed by The Demon Barbers.
I'd already decided that Demon Barbers trump The Zutons so just one choice left. I've seen Bellowhead before and I can hear that I've missed the start of their set, decision made, Rupa it is.