It was a great night and all the finalists were of a high calibre in there different ways. Tyde were energetic and tuneful. Lucy Ward sang a song of her own and then wowed the audience with a funny and spirited version of Mike Waterson's "Stich in Time". Maz O'Connor was haunting with her rendition of Cruel Mother. Emily Hoile and Alice Burn were technically superb and The Jaywalkers were interesting in their choice of songs but I agree with an earlier contributer (Folknascious)that the fake American accent let them down a tad. However I can't agree with the same contributer that Maz and Lucy "showed their immaturity", listen to Mike Harding tomorrow and I'm sure you'll be able to make up your own minds. As for Megan and Joe Henwood they performed their songs competently, it is always difficult judging the quality of original songs on first hearing however Megan is without a doubt a fine singer songwriter and she has an interesting voice.

At the interval judging by the talk over drinks the favourites seemed to be Maz O'Connor and Lucy Ward with Tyde also in the running.

However it seemed on the night that the award was given for contempory song writing, not performance and certainly not folk.

I think Jim Moray who presented the award said something along the lines of "dragging folk into the future" As we left some people expressed their surprise at the outcome, but as it had been a good night's entertainment, and free at that, most people left happy.