An amazing thing happens when the rain falls on the Cambridge Folk Festival, as it did, with considerable ferocity, several times this weekend.

An amazing thing happens when the rain falls on the CambridgeFolk Festival, as it did, with considerable ferocity, several times this weekend. Almost instantly, and with minimal fuss, a thousand umbrellas emerge from a thousand neatly-packed day-bags; and the fields around the two main stages become an object lesson in British stoicism and weather-preparedness
[ . . .] Musical highlights glittered across the weekend. The Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan was a memorable high point early on Friday afternoon, delivering a main stage performance of such musical accomplishment and melodic beauty that I wondered if anything could top it. Accompanied by a responsive four-piece band, she switched between guitar, mandolin and harmonium, and worked through a setlist drawn mostly from 2016 album, At Swim. On the record, these unhurried, water-themed songs are so subtle and gently realised that they almost fall into the background; but on stage, propelled by her voice – which has touches of Sinead O’Connor and Portishead’s Beth Gibbons – they grabbed both lapels. Her a cappella voicing of the Seamus Heaney poem Anahorish, mid-set, was the finest single piece of singing I’ve heard all year [ . . . ]

Read Full Review: A sea of brollies and a world of fabulous music at the Cambridge Folk Festival