Bella Hardy sounded far better than on her CD and indeed than live at Ely. Still a bit delicate for me but getting steadily more forceful.

Martin Simpson was simply awesome. That version of Little Musgrave stands as a piece of narration with the absolute best of Peter Bellamy (althoug very different in style), and his guitar work will impress anyone who will listen - whatever their home genre.

His guitar sound was also far better than at Ely, where the PA rig was making all guitars sound scratchy, and with a litle less bass emphasis and a bit less twang it would have sounded quite like a guitar.

Bellowhead regrettably still don't do it for me, but the cellist's harmonies were nice in places. At least one major bloop from the soundman when we got an on-screen closeup of the banjo and no banjo in the sound!

Some of the talking head stuff was almost intelligent, too (and there was another major sound bloop when they left the open air and came back to a mute presenter).


A very sadly sparse audience for a top quality show (that could have been better still).