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I found out via a Facebook friend that, as CAMRA members, we could get free entry to the Thursday night of the Cambridge Rock Festival, so after looking up the line-up I booked Thursday and Friday nights and overnight camping. The price of the whole weekend event was rather higher than I wanted to pay for the weekend, but probably warranted given the acts which were booked to perform, the headliner being the original line-up of Asia. Sadly, it seems our timing was rather off as far as the weather was concerned, with torrential rain forecast for Thursday night, and improving weather moving in for the rest of the weekend.
For once, the weather forecasters were right, with the rain holding off long enough for us to pitch the tent, book in, and make our way into one of the marquees. The first band of the weekend were a Led Zep tribute, although by the time we had queued to book in we had missed most of that one. They were followed by a group called Split Whiskers, and then a pretty good Pink Floyd tribute (one of my favourites!). Who’s Next were, well, next! They performed all the songs from Tommy (not my thing) plus more. I spent most of the set being amazed at how low the lead singers jeans were cut…..!! Musically very good, although I don’t like Tommy. The Oli Brown band topped off the evening.
Now, back to the weather…..as the evening went on the rain began in earnest….and with the marquee being at the bottom end of a sloping field you can imagine the effect! There came a point when we actually started paddling down at the front of the audience next to the stage! The water backstage apparently was a much worse problem, I believe an amp went for a burton, and long delays ensued. At one point a group of stormtroupers took to the stage, not quite sure where they came from but they were quickly shepherded away again! By the time Who’s next came on stage they were running an hour late.
There was a very well stocked real ale bar (the festival previously was named the Rockinbeerfest), but I had the thought in the back of my head that we may well get back to a tent with inches of water in it, so was mindful that I would drive home if so, and partook of very little beer that night!
Luckily the tent was surprisingly ok when we made it back. So we stayed overnight, and squelched our way to a bacon roll in the morning for brekkie. The waterlogged ground quickly turned into a soggy muddy mess as more people turned up, I guess I should have expected that at a music festival! Bands started from 11am on Saturday and we drifted between marquees, this time I made the most of the bar and did a lot of tasting! Dead like Harry were a band I remembered from Ely Folk Festival one year, so we made sure we saw them again. Its quite interesting to see how many bands were at CRF who we had previously seen at Ely Folk Festival, there seems to be a lot of crossover.
Into the evening and the Danny Bryant band played some good blues, Mostly Autumn were eagerly awaited by some of the people around us, but experienced some sound problems, and their singers’ clear disdain of the sound crew spoilt it for me, as I found her attitude irritating when the poor guys were doing their best. Following this was Barclay James Harvest who were a much more chilled sound and I found their music very enjoyable. Their instruments included a “Melatron” - which I have only found out more about recently, and a very odd instrument, which I guess could be the fore-runner to sampled music on a keyboard.
The sun actually came out during the afternoon and things started to dry out but we were quite happy to come home on Sunday morning. A pity to miss bands such as the Quireboys, Uriah Heap and Deborah Bonham though. We did manage to find a really good bakery doing bacon butties and cinnamon buns in Cambridge before heading home, as we weren’t actually allowed within the festival compound in the morning where all the fast food stalls were situated - a bit of bad planning it seems, but their loss!
Not sure if I would go to this again, although as the Thursday will be a freebee as long as we are CAMRA members it may be worthwhile checking it out again in 2010 for that night at least.
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