Saturday
A slightly older, but still young band, Manran are up next. There's a bit of banter with the audience with the band implying that being Scottish the rain always follows them and someone in the audience they should go home :-)
Everyone is really pleased that they didn't follow that advice as they deliver a set that builds on their festival opener from yesterday. That is further enhanced when they are joined by Abigail Washburn for the sing-a-long stormer, "Wagon Wheel". The tent is pretty much singing and moving as one, high octane stuff indeed.
The role is reversed as Manran then joins Abigail Washburn and band for a bit of old timey gospel music, "Divine Bell". It's a call and response song so more audience participation required and everyone appears to be in fine voice.
Abigail manages to convince the audience she's crazier and less easy to control than a bucket full of frogs. These are the moment for which the Brian McNeill Session is rightly famed.
Manran leave the stage to Abigail and band for some good honest banjo lead old time music. It is quite simply beautiful. I'm really looking forward to catching a fuller set later in the festival. In this short space of time she chooses not to do any of her Chinese Bluegrass fusion, but reminds us that it exists. Another reason to catch her later.
The change of pace gives us a chance to recover pretty much everything except are breaths. Carrying through a theme through its still banjo time but this time in the hands of Damien O'Kane along with the guitar of Dave Cosby. In the end Damien starts off with a uke, but switches to banjo for a set of tunes from the new album. Boy does it whet the appetite for that relief as well as reminding people how different the banjo can sound for different genres. As well as playing the Session, Damien et al are also promoting the album by handing out condoms. It's getting them written about.
Moore, Moss, Rutter, the current Young Tradition holders are up next, but only really have time to play a couple of tunes, it's enough time to plug their new album, let people know when they are playing full sets over the weekend and grant a small flavour of what they're about, but not enough for us to fully experience the full range of their talents.
Alex Patterson, Bryony and Grace Lemon are once again joined by Alex's sister Ellie with Bryony and Grace totally over the shock of being kidnapped by Hobo Jones and the Junkyard dogs. Their combination of Americana style singing against traditional instrumentation catches a lot of non-locals by surprise; again it's a short stint, but absolutely great. Alex Patterson's vocals impress me more every time I hear them
Megan Henwood just gets one number and launches into a blistering attack on the media, which she dedicates to Rupert Murdoch, great choice. It's a real shame that Megan only gets the one song, but that is the nature of the beast. She's a great emerging artist and a former Young Tradition winner. I'm looking forward to catching a longer set in the Den later.