Co-Operative Cambridge Folk Festival
Saturday
Unfortunately I miss the end of Diane's set so that I can get back to Stage One and catch up with a real industry legend, Booker T, of Booker T and the MGs fame.
It's raining cats and dogs outside so I stop off at the media caravan to pick up my umbrella, a good choice as it suddenly starts raining even harder.
As leader of the renown Stax House band , Booker T has played with some of the music industry's biggest names, in an outstanding turn of fate, some of the music industry's biggest names now clammer to appear on his records, Neil Young makes an appearance on Booker's most recent record, "Potato Hole"
As well as musicians, another group of people owe a huge debt to Booker T, the shareholders at Hammond. The sounds that he got out of their B3 organ defined the instrument as first choice for blues, soul, r'n'b and even rock, taking it's distinctive sound to the world.
He's also a showman extraordinaire, there's not a lot you can do behind the organ, not a lot of poses you can strike so he leaves that to the band, including the bass player of Drive By Truckers of whom one of the crowd behind said, 'I want to hear that speak.' Booker himself sits side on to the audience, turns and faces the crowd on a regular basis and hits them with a broad beaming smile.
He also engages with them between songs, he's been in the business a long time, he knows the patter, but more importantly he knows how to keep it sounding fresh so you think he's engaging with you and just you as a crowd on this night.
The answer to the questions, will he play it?, and if so when?, is provided just as the photographers are putting the cameras back in their bags at the end of the third song as we exit the pit to the unmistakeable refrain of "Green Onions".
It's a set destined to become one of my festival highlights, sometimes instrumentals can speak volumes and this is one of those occasions. There is a reason why some musicians become legends, Booker T has such a natural fluid style and a great understanding of arrangement. He's already been inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame for seventeen years.
If this turns out to be the only time I see him play live, at least I can say I've seen him. If there was ever a better player of the Hammond B3, they've yet to make themselves known.
Stage One retains it's American presence for the next act, latin rockers, Los Lobos, making their Cambridge Folk Festival debut. Booker T is going to be a hard act to follow, but he's got the audience pumped. The stage crew have done a good job, it's a quick switch around. The compere warns us that it's getting muddy outside. The first tale of mud divers has reached the backstage bar, in places its like our own mini Glastonbury.
Los Lobos started as a folk rock band, but that would be the Chicano version of folk rock, back in 1973 and have shared stages with the likes of The Clash, Bob Dylan and U2.
They've always been unpredictable, loyal to their ideals rather than industry pressures, a typical response to their worldwide success following their contribution to the soundtrack of "La Bamba" was to record an album of Mexican folk tunes.
It looks like they've gone for more of a back to their roots set here, taking the hard rock edge off their sound and replacing it with a looser more latin feel.
The songs are infused with the rhythms of central America and the southern US of A and mainly sung in Spanish. It matters not a jot that I can't understand much of what's being sung about, the songs are infused with energy and vibe and are rewarded by an audience giving it plenty of movement.
It's a really enjoyable set, it was one that I wasn't sure about on the bill but it definitely worked, the band did cut loose with some rockier numbers during the set adding some heat to the spice and flavours they were already exploring.
It's time for another big change of stage and sound as we move from Latin rock to Celtic rock and Cambridge favourites, the Saw Doctors. Whilst the stage is being changed I noticed that the raining has stopped, to be replaced by the most extraordinary sky, fused with blues and peach and salmon. The Saw Doctors have declared an open pit, which means the photographers can stay as long as they like to really catch the atmosphere of the later part of the set. Apparently they'd also given permission for the photographers to get up side of stage, but some confusion between the managers and the stage crew meant that it never really happened.
The great advantage The Saw Doctors have is that so many people in the crowd know their songs and the band encourage audience participation, with the exception of the new single, that's riding high in the Irish Charts, "She Loves Me" the crowd were chanting the choruses to pretty much every song.
The Saw Doctors use pretty much every trick in the book to build their set, hand waving clapping, even a complete swap around of instruments that saw the drummer become the lead singer for one part of a song.
It's pretty much impossible to go wrong having the Saw Doctors close a night in Cambridge. They may be too old for the five aside football matches against the crew prior to their performance, but they certainly aren't to old to give it all they've got on a Saturday night.
That's it for the evening, well officially anyway. It's time to meet up with some friends for a beer and see what unofficial sessions are going on around the site. On the way out and about I bump into Lorne MacDougall and Ruairidh having a chat by the burger band. I get the impression they're in for a long one.