Matthew Walton’s Blog

‘What,’ I hear you cry, ‘happened to day three?’

Quite simply, I was at a wedding. I just blogged about it.

So, the folk festival. After the drive back from Nottingham from the wedding, I was pretty tired. I got on my bike and went over to the folk festival though, and was just in time to see the start of Lúnasa’s set. They were great (so I went and bought one of their albums), but they clashed with Karine Polwart, who I really had to see. And she was well worth missing Lúnasa for. Stupendously good performance, and we got to sing along too which is usually fun. Not on the sad songs though, and Karine Polwart does an excellent line in sad songs.

Good thing she finished off with a happy one really — What Are You Waiting For? is a great way to finish a set which was otherwise quite depressing, beginning with a song about a mother and her children who were killed by Bosnian Serb troops during the war in Yugoslavia.

She was followed by the Old Crow Medicine Show, who are awful, so I went and got myself another chocolate and banana crepe (strongly recommended), some nachos and a big hunk of watermelon, talked to Dave, Mike and Fara, who were all getting different things out of the festival, and then wandered back in time to see Altan, who are much like Danú in many ways, but a bit more energetic on their instrumental sets. Good live, wouldn’t buy their album though, as that style of singing grates a bit with me.

After Altan was the lovely Kate Rusby, every bit as good as Uncle Chris says. She launched her new album at the festival that day, and so we were able to buy copies a whole month before it’s out in the shops. Can you get any better than that? Well yes, you can, but only if you don’t arrive too late to ask Kate to sign it for you like I did.

She’s excellent live though, her voice is superb, and she’s extremely funny. Guests such as Idlewild’s lead singer (who’s name I cannot remember, he wasn’t interesting enough) and some brass players from the Coldstream Guards added some variety. We were encouraged to sing the chorus of Canaan’s Land and I Courted A Sailor, and Kate finished off her set with a highly charged rendition of Underneath the Stars, a song I’ve loved since I first heard it. Bit tearful there!

Blazin’ Fiddles were next, but they failed to capture my interest sufficiently to keep me there when I was having difficulty standing upright due to general tiredness, particularly mental tiredness, so I got back on my bike and cycled home. And went to bed.

Today I had the day off work, and a jolly good thing too!