BBC Radio 2 Cambridge Folk Festival 2006

4 Aug 2006 in Festival, Music

Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge, 27-30 July 2006

Capercaillie. © Capercaillie and Survival Records.

NO LESS THAN nine out of 37 acts on this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival bill – virtually a quarter of the total – were Scottish. Of those, fully two-thirds either came from the Highlands and Islands, or boasted a strong connection thereto, and this among a programme that spanned all the world’s continents except Asia. If that’s not a shining example of both nation and region punching above their weight, I don’t know what is.

Most of the artists in question were making their debut at this most illustrious of English festivals, whose 42nd year notched up another record-fast sellout. For most, too, it was by far their biggest gig to date, performing amongst the likes of Emmylou Harris, The Chieftains, Cerys Matthews, Richard Thompson, top Malian duo Amadou and Mariam, and neo-bluegrass hotshots Nickel Creek.

North Uist songbird Julie Fowlis, though, was at Cambridge last year, as the first Gaelic singer to be featured in one of the festival’s three highly-prized Club Tent showcases. Her three main-stage slots this time followed on from winning the Horizon prize for best newcomer at February’s Radio 2 Folk Awards, and she certainly made the most of the opportunity.

“…it’s just been fantastic to see Gaelic music going down such a storm with so many people down here”

Robustly but sensitively accompanied by fiddler John McCusker, guitarist Ross Martin, Eamonn Dorley on bouzouki and Martin O’Neill on bodhrán, she soared sublimely over the language barrier, putting her jewel-like vocals through their paces in a mix of tender laments, atmospheric ballads and buoyant puirt-a-beul, between times picking up her whistle for a few well-placed instrumental sets. Besides a rave reception from the punters, the upshot was a whirlwind round of press interviews, and an hour-long queue for her appearance at the singing tent.

‘It’s been a really important festival for me in lots of ways,’ she said, after Sunday’s triumphant final performance on the Radio 2 Stage. ‘I’ve had some great shows, with some of the biggest crowds I’ve ever played to, and I’ve met a lot of the main people from the English folk scene, promoters and journalists and so on, because it’s such a key event for them. And it’s just been fantastic to see Gaelic music going down such a storm with so many people down here.’

While Fowlis is still routinely – and entirely reasonably – classified in reviews and programme notes as ‘young’, she’s a veritable veteran alongside Bodega, who were delightedly losing their Cambridge virginity as current holders of the BBC Young Folk Award. The audience roundly returned the teenage quintet’s enthusiasm, with a good many jaws literally dropping at their precocious instrumental prowess. The tunes were complemented by a diverse song selection featuring Norrie MacIver’s muscular, lyrical lead vocals, including a Scots whaling ballad, traditional Gaelic material, and a splendid cover of Dylan’s ‘Rock Me Mama’, complete with five-part a capella harmonies.

The different age strata among Scottish musicians nowadays are so minimally separated as to render talk of generations or even ‘waves’ pretty much redundant. Multi-instrumentalist Anna Massie, for instance, together with her trio colleagues Mairearad Green (accordion) and Jenn Butterworth (guitar/vocals), are a wee bit older than Bodega, but a bit younger and newer on the scene than Croft No. Five, who in turn are a year or two Fowlis’s junior – all of the above being well under 30. It was an impressively young team, in other words, representing the Highlands and Islands at Cambridge 2006, all stepping up to the plate with admirable professionalism and aplomb.

Massie and co, playing mostly self-penned tunes with tremendous brio and finesse, had the daunting task of opening the main arena on Friday lunchtime, and made it sound as though they’d been relishing such challenges for years. Firebrand folk-fusioneers Croft No. Five, for their part, comprehensively rocked the Radio 2 tent on Saturday, then gave themselves further cause for serious second thoughts about their decision to split up, closing the weekend with a mighty, joyous, brilliantly commanding big-stage climax the following night.

Having played their first gig during last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Lau may be a young band, but all three members – fiddler and Oban native Aidan O’Rourke, Orcadian guitarist Kris Drever, and expat English accordionist Martin Green – while hardly ancient, have all been round the block a few times (musically speaking, of course). The trio liberally paid their Cambridge dues as part of Thursday night’s warm-up show, creating a bigger, bolder and more intricately braided mesh of melodic and rhythmic styles than any three players have a right to.

When it comes to seasoned Cambridge campaigners, though, there are few more at home in its leafy, laid-back surroundings than Capercaillie, whose groundbreaking cross-pollination of Gaelic traditions with contemporary grooves and textures paved the way for so many of those who’ve come after.

They took the stage on both Saturday and Sunday to a deserved heroes’ welcome, each time delivering a consummately polished yet edgily dynamic set, counterposing melodic lushness with spiky, pulsing beats and moody background colours, crowned by the exquisite ebb and swell of Karen Matheson’s singing.