"I assume they must have been doing something completely different on the finals night......musn't they?"

Yes they were. Acoustic guitar and alto saxophone which was a refeshingly different blend, good singing in her own English accent that showed some awareness of traditional vocal styles, well constructed songs, professional without being slick. They were the obvious winner on the night out of a very good set of finalists. I wouldn't have recognised them from that MySpace which is probably a different musical project. The talk afterwards was that they've grown up going to a well known folk club (sorry, forgot the name) where their mum was the landlady of the pub.

Tyde were extremely good but in a style many others play, their age wasn't a relevant factor at all but I suppose that's easier for instrumental-only entrants. Lucy Ward and Maz O'Connor concentrated on the vocals where their immaturity showed a little and in their case you know they'll get better with the life experience to match their song content and obvious vocal abilities. Emily Hoile and Alice Burn had almost too much technique to the point it didn't really gel - less would be more, something you can also only learn from experience. Jaywalkers were the only ones I disliked because of the girl's rather grating American accent.

It was a good night out, and Jeana Leslie & Siobhan Miller have made huge leaps forward since winning last year, but that always happens.