Ticket booked for Sunday July 29th 2012!!   http://www.cambridgefolkfestival.co.uk/

Acts scheduled to performing:

Sunday
Music: 12 midday-11pm

Joan Armatrading*
Loreena McKennitt*
Angelique Kidjo*
Seth Lakeman*
Nic Jones*
Lau
Ruthie Foster
Karine Polwart
The Unwanted
Anaïs Mitchell*
Kan*
Fay Hield & The Hurricane Party
The Staves
Ross Ainslie & Jarlath Henderson Band
Habadekuk
Ioscaid
Lera Lynn*
Paul Cookson*

OK, I didn’t get to see all of those acts, and you never do succeed when there are at least two and often far more venues within one festival.  Sadly, I didn’t make it to see Lau, Nic Jones and a number of others, but of those I did see The Unwanted, Karine Polwart, Seth Lakeman, Loreena McKennitt, The Staves and Habadekuk were all excellent and worthy of recommendation.

Strangely, I found Joan Armatrading‘s set a bit distant and uninspired, though it probably didn’t help that I had been standing undercover and out of the rain and thunder for about 5 hours by that time. The last time I saw her was at the NEC in the early 80s, when the music was, with the benefit of rosy-tinted hindsight, fresh and alive.

However, the stand-out performers were Ruthie Foster, whose smoky soaring voice is soaked in soul and gospel, and the amazing Angelique Kidjo (“Africa’s premier diva” according to Time magazine), who contrives to bring wonderful African music to the stage and be genuinely entertaining without trying.

As for Cambridge, I think I will go again!