I can’t say I was looking forward to this with great enthusiasm. When I saw Bob Geldof was appearing at the Folk Festival I imagined him with an acoustic guitar. It wasn’t greatly appealing. How wrong I was. This was Bob with a band. They were about as far from Folk as you could get.
That Band rocked as good as any Boomtown Rats could have done (They had a rat or two!).
Bob was right on form starting with a rant and diatribe about Folkies and heading off with an expletive laden set with goes at the Daily Mail and diatribes about the media. There were poignant bits about Africa and the needs and personal bits. The music was hot punk and rocking and the crowd were delirious. He stormed through the last two numbers – Rat Trap and I Don’t Like Mondays and was forced to come back for a couple of forbidden encores.
This was an unexpected delight! That band rocked and Bob was giving no quarter! The unexpected highlight of the whole weekend!!
I was really looking forward to seeing Kate Rusby but was disappointed that she was doing all her Christmas songs. I don’t mind the odd one scattered in but a whole set of them was a bit much for me. As a good antitheist I would have preferred her renditions of some of the great songs. She is brilliant doing the Dylan and Denny.
Having said that Kate was in fine form with her sparkly costume and sparkly Yorkshire wit. She chirped and sang beautifully.
This was a little bit like the festival of not quite so famous brothers – not only did we have David Knopler but we also had Chris Jagger. Interesting.
Well David played a set with Harry Bogdanovs and it certainly wasn’t dire. I enjoyed it. He ranged between acoustic guitar and piano and at times there were shades of Dire Straits.
There were times when David seemed a bit down and a brief mention of brotherly relationships. Which I gathered were not brilliant.
I haven’t seen Gryphon since the day the Ark sailed but they sounded pretty much the same! A good blend of great Folk with a bit of Rock and eccentricity!
