Twenty years ago I'd have scooped out my own eyes before going to a folk festival.But Cambridge Folk Festival has now become a regular for me. It's several days of drinking beer in the sun and listing to a range of music, much of it not really folk. Which is just as well because I still don't really like traditional British folk music. I can see the musical skill that the fiddle players and singers have but it doesn't really mean that much to me.
There is a fair amount of that at Cambridge and it's all done very well but the other genres are amazing: Americana, 'World Music', jazz, swing and acoustic-rock. The kind of music they used to play on the Jazz Stage at Glastonbury. Non-mainstream stuff that often can't easily be categorised.
The best ones this year were as eclectic as ever. Pokey LaFarge for cool, American-roots music, Jason Isbell with his (bleak) personal compositions and CC Smugglers for their enthusiasm. Not to forget the Peatbog Faeries who blew the roof off stage two with their energy. Nearest thing to a rave at a folk festival.
So another great year and yet again I've been to a folk festival and not seen a lot of folk.