A sea of brollies and a world of fabulous music at the Cambridge Folk Festival
An amazing thing happens when the rain falls on the Cambridge Folk Festival, as it did, with considerable ferocity, several times this weekend. Almost instantly, and with minimal fuss, a thousand umbrellas emerge from a thousand neatly-packed day-bags; and the fields around the two main stages become an object lesson in British stoicism and weather-preparedness.
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This is, of course, very un-rock’n’roll — the kind of thing that would never be seen at Glastonbury or Reading. But it’s also part of what makes the Folk Fest so oddly endearing. Here, hiking boots outnumber trainers, no one appears to be live-tweeting anything — and certainly no one is about to let a spot of bad weather interfere with a picnic in front of Loudon Wainwright III or Shirley Collins.
Musical highlights glittered across the weekend. The Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan was a memorable high point early on Friday afternoon, delivering a main stage performance of such musical accomplishment and melodic beauty that I wondered if anything could top it. Accompanied by a responsive four-piece band, she switched between guitar, mandolin and harmonium, and worked through a setlist drawn mostly from 2016 album, At Swim. On the record, these unhurried, water-themed songs are so subtle and gently realised that they almost fall into the background; but on stage, propelled by her voice - which has touches of Sinead O’Connor and Portishead’s Beth Gibbons - they grabbed both lapels. Her a cappella voicing of the Seamus Heaney poem Anahorish, mid-set, was the finest single piece of singing I’ve heard all year.
Multi-award winning three-piece Lau played the second stage on Saturday, and proved that the designation ‘experimental folk band’ isn’t always a turn-off. Comprising Kris Drever (vocals, guitar), Aidan O’Rourke (fiddle) and Martin Green (accordion, wurlitzer, keys, electronics), they’ve been together for a decade now, and showed a near-telepathic connection on stage, motoring through a succession of fiery jigs and reels, splashed with dark colour from a Heath Robinson-esque contraption at Green’s right hand, and threatening to turn the area at the front of the second stage into that rarest of sights: a folk mosh pit.
Jake Bugg, who headlined the main stage on Sunday evening, was less enlivening. Playing acoustically and almost-solo (with sparse piano accompaniment), he deserved credit for pluckiness, and for some muscular acoustic guitar playing — but not for the quality of the songs, which fell flatly upon the crowd, many of whom had seen his forebears, Dylan, Don MacLean and Johnny Cash, first time around and could tell an imitation product when they heard it.
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Thankfully, the bluegrass-rock function-band-on-speed, Hayseed Dixie, were on hand to deliver a final bolt of lightning, bringing the pep back into the arena with a joyous festival-closing set that barely slipped below breakneck — and contained deliciously Jack Daniels-splashed reworkings of everything from Michael Jackson’s Black or White to Motorhead’s Ace of Spades to Elvis Costello’s Watching The Detectives. A thousand umbrella-owners bobbed in appreciation; and the rain, finally, eased off.
