Flat Earth Society Makes Plausible Case

A trip to Cambridge for the folk festival, a place renowned for its flatness – it’s true, it is flat and the longstanding festival is still chuntering away – I last went in 1975 and have vague recollections of stunning performances from Richard & Linda Thompson and the beer tent. Be that as it may, the festival has a fine eclectic mix and is not too sanctimonious about what sort of music is let in the door. As is becoming apparent from this summer, one of the highlights was, yes, an old bloke. Allen Toussaint (you see, not an obvious folkie) appeared on stage to give us all a master-class in rolling funk and blues piano with a great fat slab of Noo Awlins (which is also flat and tragically even more prone to flooding). Assisted by a saxophonist, bassist and drummer, they ranged through his back catalogue (Working in a coalmine; Ride your pony and all sorts of songs you’d forgotten that he wrote. And just look at some of the people that have covered his songs - personal favourites including Little Feat, Robert Palmer and Jerry Garcia) interspersed with reminiscences of all the wonderful people he had worked with – see above but also and at most length in his reminiscing, Frankie Miller. Bizarre you will agree, but magic.

Honourable mentions also go to Chris Wood (not the dead one from Traffic and all the better for it); kd lang (spirited Hallelujah but Lenny had already upped his game); Eric Bibb (spotted on three different stages - yes at three different times); Grupo Fantasma and Bassekou Kouytate & Ngoni ba.

One thing you do notice about Cambridge is that it’s not actually very big. This means that you don’t have to go very far to hear some extraordinary things. It also means that you can’t go very far – it’s nothing like Glastonbury where you can trudge for hours (even when it isn’t mud) before you find a little bolthole stage that has a tiny audience listening to the best thing you’ve ever heard. And because it’s run by the council they are very strict about when they close up each night – which worked against the Imagined Village who, straddled by loads of equipment and technology, found themselves with a shorter set than anticipated. Still, you can’t knock a festival that pumps the Archers omnibus edition through its main PA system on a Sunday morning.