Posted by Mike Hough 30 August 2009
Friday’s threatening clouds had been banished and it was fine for the whole day, even sunny at times. Krista Detor gave a gentle but mesmeric performance as the first act on the main stage. She played the piano and sang beautifully and her humour and wisdom shone through in “How will I know?” about a friend whose husband always leaves her on a Thursday.
Tom Kitching & Gren Bartley’s early afternoon set featured a kaleidascope of musical styles, with folk, ceilidh, world music, country and blues all making an appearance. This all went down well, particularly their version of Leadbelly’s ’Cow Cow Yikky Yikky’.
People were turned away in droves from the long-awaited performance of Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman. Unfortunately so was I so I can’t tell you much about it.
Emily Smith showed off her stunning voice in her session with some songs of real emotion and joy, exemplified by ’Butterflies swoop, butterflies fall’, a tale composed on the shores of Lake Huron, Canada.
The Duncan McFarlane band got the mid afternoon crowd jigging with their robust folk-rock. On one tune, the various sections of the band battled it out for the audience’s applause and the guitars won, apparently for the first time in six years.
Over at the Dance Tent, which you really did need the site map to find, Steamchicken cooked up a lively brew with a mixture of squeezeboxes and brass. Sadly, not long after the tent had to be closed for the rest of the day for repair.
Belshazzar’s Feast played two sets on Saturday afternoon and evening. The two Pauls (Sartin and Hutchinson) entertained the crowd royally, with their blend of unearthed and classical tunes with brilliant and intelligent musical comedy with filthy innuendo which soon had the whole tent in stitches.
Every seat was taken and the aisles packed as the Darwin Song Project played their songs inspired by the life of Charles Darwin. There was a lot of goodwill from the crowd, especially those local to the area who have been engaged in celebrations of Darwin’s life and work this year. The 8 musicians did not disappoint, producing a live performance that outshone even their excellent CD release. The background to the project and its resulting music were explained by the artists and through the set, photos, lyrics and quotes projected onto a big screen above the stage. The highlights were too many to list but Mark Erelli’s lyrical genius and the beautiful vocal harmonies of Rachael McShane, Krista Detor, Emily Smith and Karine Polwart stood out in a performance typified by one great combination after another.
Those that made the tough choice of not seeing the Darwin crowd were treated to the main stage spectacle of the Seth Lakeman band in full flow. The awesome loudness and lightshow were matched by Seth’s and the band’s virtuosity. They have always given their all on stage but do seem newly energised by the addition of Benji Kirkpatrick to their ranks. A hasty encore of Race to be King left everyone crying for more but the stage had to be cleared for the headliner but quite why Seth wasn’t the headliner is anyone’s guess.
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