&Was surprised when I got back to Sydney to learn of torrential downpours over the weekend. Weather in Canberra was terrific, hardly a cloud to be seen (Thursday night to Sunday afternoon, anyway).

Usually, there's one act I never heard of before that blows me away. Didn't happen this time, but I did enjoy a few acts that were new to me - Dionysus (a young 4-piece from South Australia, I think, do music of the Eastern Mediterranean), Golden Fleece (trio, Georgian polyphony - it's more impressive with a bigger choir, but these three were quite good), Folkloric Choir Samotsvety (terrific outfits, and more songs about Cossacks than I've ever heard in one place before), Camoon (Middle Eastern music), Mandy Keating and Helen McLachlan (the Second Coming of Kate & Ruth), BabaGanoush (the sound man did them no favors Sunday in the Trocadero, I couldn't hear the clarinet at all because of the piano accordion; the balance is far better on their CD).

My old favorites were terrific - Chloe & Jason Roweth, Yalla, Nancy Kerr James Fagan, Shortis & Simpson, Apodimi Compania, The Transylvaniacs, Kristina Olsen, and Sirocco.

I could make an even longer list of the fine bands I didn't get to see, but that would be too depressing.

The best part was the singing sessions from 10 until whenever. The Friday session seemed to be breaking up by midnight, but the Saturday was still getting bigger when I left just after midnight, and there's no telling how long it went on.

I won't dwell on the acts I saw that I didn't like (and there weren't very many) but I do want to record one critical comment. A band that did a good job on The L & N Don't Stop Here Any More introduced it as being from 1927, and from North Carolina. I guess that from Australia Kentucky looks a lot like North Carolina, but the date is off by a few decades. Jean Ritchie, who wrote the song, turned 5 in 1927.