Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite

Subject: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 02:32 PM

Freeview Channel 9

Followed by a Lindisfarne gig (prolly more folk in that)!

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 04:25 PM

Wo! What was that other guitar Emmylou Harris was playing in open tuning? Did it haave a 7th drone string below the bottom E off the keyboard? Great sound, shame about the words.

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: greg stephens
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 05:07 PM

Well the dancers with the Chieftains were pretty hot stuff I thought.

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 05:10 PM

Saw most of it - and enjoyed a good part of that. Not sure I'd like it live - I prefer my music more domestic!

Regards

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Oct 06 - 08:20 PM

The dancer with the beard was a lot tidier. The younger one I thnk belonged in the Guinness tradition. Both of them more "Ceilidh" than formal Irish dance.

The Chieftains once again proved that everyone else who plays Irish converts it to the unsubtleties of disco-folk. With them you can still hear the lilt and the light and shade, as when I first heard them at the Albert Hall in the early 70s. If all Irish music was that good I might listen to it and be able to tell one tune from another.

Again 100% sad to have no English folk, and indeed to see the only English folkie viewed (I regard Thompson as contemporary, not folk) namely Eliza Carthy, making a bad attempt at (and lamely jigging about to - what a contrast to the way she used to dance at the age of about 14 when her first band (I think) played Cambridge and I saw her in the club tent) Salsa, a tradition (if it is a tradition) nothing to do with England.

As for Thompson, I like Vincents a lot (and indeed have ridden both a C series and a D series) but I thought his guitar work both untidy and unrhythmic.

How bad it is to see perhaps the most famous English "Folk Festival" drift further and further from folk, and particularly from English Folk.

As to folk music, can it be like religion? "I say to you a prophet (transpose a folk tradition) is not without honour save in his own country."

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 12:22 AM

I should be renamed the Cambridge Pop Festival, and once again the BBC fucked up the sound, you just couldn't hear the piper who played with Eddie Reader, and lots of others.

Shame about the Cheiftains, BBC just focused on the two obviously American tap dancers and we just got a few seconds of music.

I won't watch again, I could have been out watching the traffic lights change.

eric

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: GUEST, Tom Bliss
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 04:46 AM

Cambridge can't be everything to everyone, but it does a grand job (along with Cropredy) as a stepping stone between the non-folk festivals and the folk world. The coverage was fine, the playing simply excellent. Let's try to celebrate the good, and hope for better still.

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 05:03 AM

Surely if Cambridge is to be a stepping stone to folk, it ought to have some?

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: The Shambles
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 08:23 AM

It should have a little more music too?

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: GerryMc
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 08:52 AM

god you lot love to whine don't you. It's a festival, it's music. Deal

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: GUEST,AS
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 09:06 AM

I was there and I thought Richard Thompsons playing was amazing. I do think that there could be a lot more English Folk though... then again, the club tent had some good stuff on.
Cambridge seemed to have something for everyone, which obviously doesn't please everyone!

Subject: RE: Review: Cambridge, BBC4TV 20 Oct 9PM Tonite
From: Alan Day
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 03:33 PM

Anything that promotes Folk Music is for the good ,whatever the country it comes from.
Please do not bring snobbery into Folk Music.
I enjoyed it,the dancers the music.Thank you BBC for putting it on,if it brings youngsters into the Folk Scene then great.
For goodness sake we want all the promotion we can get and at least good or bad the BBC seems to be at least acknowledging that Folk Exists.
Al