REVIEW: The Co-operative Cambridge Folk Festival 2011

By Olivia Abbott on August 1st 2011

It was friendly, it was fun, it was folky... Olivia Abbott comes back to reality with a bump after a weekend of making new friends

INTIMACY was the name of the game at this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival. The addition of The Den – the small, cosy tent showcasing up and coming young musicians - proved to be an inspired move by the festival organisers. The tent was pretty much packed for the whole weekend, the heat not putting people off snuggling up on rugs and cushions and enjoying the red ambience cast by the coloured fabric. And have you ever seen a couple share a mic more intimately than Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, who performed their beautiful, harmonies there on the Sunday night? They were a delight.

As ever, those in the know were having the most fun away from Stage 1. Some of the big names in the main arena were worth a fight to the front for – up there in contention for set of the festival was Frank Turner, bringing his punky political edge to the proceedings; and Richard Thompson’s voice seems not to be showing his age in any way – but on Friday night when Bellowhead were doing their thrash-jazz-brass thing (sorry –Jon Boden is a genius, his solo album Songs from the Floodplain is superb, and Spiers & Boden are brilliant; but Bellowhead sound like a car crash) the place to be was the Club Tent, where local band The Willows brought their own-penned tunes – not to mention their own homemade jam – to warm the hearts of those who were beginning to feel the distinct chill of evening.

Winner of this year's Radio 2 Horizon Award, Scottish singer Ewan McLennan perofrmed on Saturday in the Club Tent

The crowd in The Den soak up the atmosphere as Sean Taylor plays

It's organised chaos at a ceilidh at Stage 2

Bard were a great discovery on Sunday afternoon

Indie-folk band Admiral Fallow played on Stage 2 on Saturday

Not all the entertainment went on on the stages. Acroujou Circus Theatre rolled up (ha hem) with a show with a difference

The lucky ones whose weekend started on Thursday were treated to the subtle beauties of Chris Wood’s songwriting and singing on Stage 2 (‘Thursday night’s great isn’t it?’ he said. ‘The toilets haven’t backed up yet…’ Not that they do, at Cambridge, of course…) and before Chris we’d met Dublin’s James Vincent McMorrow, whose haunting voice was rather overwhelemed by too much bass.

One problem with the festival is juggling which acts to see when. Luckily, the excellent Orkney duo Saltfishforty were playing four times, so we could sacrifice the Friday evening show in favour of Frank Turner and Newton Faulkner, and catch them instead on Saturday morning at a festival session on Stage 2, and that afternoon with Spiers & Boden. By Saturday night, quite a few people had cottoned on to what a great act they are, and the crowd in the Club Tent was positively jumping. It seemed four sessions weren’t actually enough.

Orkney duo Saltfishforty nearly blew away the canvas in the Club Tent on Saturday night

The Den

The Paul McKenna Band - great tunes and a great voice

Master musician Jon Boden, the BBC's Folk Singer of the Year 2010

Where else can you expect to meet Kelda the giant lady?

Frank Turner, a man with a message

Other highlights included catching the sublime Passenger in the bar early on Sunday afternoon before his show in The Den; taking a sneaky peek at The Spooky Men’s Chorale doing a singing workshop with a bunch of clearly absolutely delighted children; hearing Paul McKenna’s great voice for the first time; and discovering Bard, who played in the Den on Sunday and are definitely worth watching out for.

But, strange though it may seem to say, Cambridge Folk Festival isn’t just about the staged music. There was great fun to be had away from the tents – including a giant yak, a Mad-Max-style show involving acrobatics on a giant wheel that made the rounds of the arena, and, of course, Granny Tourismo – where else can you expect to see three blokes dressed up as grannies, riding giant motorised shopping trolleys to hip hop music? It can only be Cambridge Folk Festival. Oh, and tickets for next year have gone on sale already. Visit cambridgefolkfestival.co.uk

Yakkety yak... Adults and children alike loved Yeshe

Local band The Willows sang sweet songs and gave away jam. How good is that?

Passenger made an unscheduled stop at the bar, to the delight of fans old and new

The crowd enjoy a show at Stage 2

Flowers in your hair were not obligatory, but very lovely

A rapt audience listen to Richard Thompson

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