Friday
Friday starts off in the traditional manner with a full English. I wander down to The Red Lion to discover it's now being run by the same people that used to run The Unicorn so I know the day is going to get off to a good start and it does.
The advantage of a big breakfast is that if I miss lunch and I often do, I'm good until the evening.
Friday starts with with finishing the Thursday write up before heading to the site. I bump into a number of old friends on the way and catch up with the craic and there's quite a bit to catch up on, births, moves and music.
Eventually I find my way to my morning home, backstage at the Club Tent, getting ready for the first coverage of the day, the Tim Edey guitar workshops.
There's lots of different workshops over the course of the festival, it's one of the many things the festival contributes to the music. I never miss one at the start of the day at the Club Tent, having learnt the air versions of many instruments here. Time to hone the old six string skills.
I manage to catch a quick chat with Tim during which time he proffers a copy of his best of compilation for the old blag bag.
Tim is unusual for a folkie in that he plays nylon string guitar. He's a big proponent of both the DADGAD configuration as well as the drop D method of guitar playing which involves tuning your E string down to D to aid in that really driving guitar sound, particularly when it takes on those Irish stylings.
Having initially set up on stage, almost immediately he's got his gear down in amongst the considerable number of people that have already arrived for the workshop.
As the workshop progresses more and more people come into the Club Tent to hear and watch the workshop. Tim's workshop is very much hands on, plenty of encouraging those who have brought guitars to get them out and play. He also appears to have brought out some really vicious mossies and I've already got a number of bites.
My air guitar lessons are going well. I've never pseudo played drop D before and it's easier than I thought. I'm sure it'll be more difficult with an actual guitar. Tim constantly checks his guitar heroes as he goes through the workshop. He also gets out of his chair on a number of occasions to give the younger people that have turned up to take part.
The workshop has a slightly rambling structure, but it fits Tim's positive and enthusiastic personality perfectly. For a short period Tim picks up his melodeon which he'd broken the strap on playing the Club Tent the night before, to accompany his pupils. At least he threatens to, as I said a rambling, but highly enjoyable experience.
Friday morning is also the day of the Mojo Interview. Every year one of the headliners from the festival comes across to the Club Tent to do an interview, this year it is a man that has probably become entitled to the epitaph legend, Roy Harper, one of the few artists to have performed with Led Zep, Pink Floyd and Kate Bush.
Colin Irwin orchestrates the interview starting off with a questions of his own before taking more of an audience participation section. Roy takes the answers down some unexpected routes. It turns out that one of the more classic influences on him came from his dad listening to iceskating shows on the radio.
Naturally the conversation drifts to the musicians that he kicked around in his early days and if we're being honest since.
Roy Harper did have conversations with the likes of Nick Drake, he also thinks that he sometimes over thinks his own music. He posed his own question as to how the likes of Shelley and Keates would survive in an X-Factor world. Both were names that influenced Harper, but as he reminds us in their day they were considered a bit wordy and to a degree juvenile in their day.
One of the things I like about Roy in the interview is the way he accepts accolades, with a certain amount of modest, but also with the feeling that it was something that was hard earned.
It's funny when you see the mild mannered gentlemen on stage, what a music history he represents, the things he's seen and taken part in. It's one of the things I really like about the Mojo Interview, it does bring a world into perspective, it is a chance to hear the words direct from the horses mouth.
Fights with the music industry over songs and albums. A really fascinating insight into a genuinely interesting man.