Cambridge folk festival review Robert Plant thrills Peggy Seeger inspires and Oysterband rock

Whereas in a normal live situation Plant could come across as somewhat subdued and laid back there is no doubting that Robert Plant is relishing every moment. He may regularly bend the laws of reality alongside gods and monsters, but he’s almost distressingly well-grounded when it comes to music. Twenty-four years ago he was on this same stage at the Cambridge folk festival with Priory of Brion, recreating chart hits of the 60s by Them and Love. Since then he has to his credit four bands and Alison Krauss and tonight presents his relatively new – formed five years ago – more metallic five piece Saving Grace whom he discovered in a low key intimate affair while they were opening for the irrespective of the fact that Fairport Convention provided a masterclass in how to revive and rework the country, folk, rock and blues. 
 
Plant wears black clothing in the performance, and he switches the singing with Suzi Dian occasionally playing the harmonica and bass guitar. Toxic first leads to the slow blues of Win My Train Fare Home which he first performed with English guitarist Justin Adams at the Festival in the Desert. This is followed by a delightful Taler’s Song in the traditional style accompanied by banjo, and followed by a raw interpretation of Friends by Led Zeppelin, with Dian adding accordion for the song. Subsequently, tributes to Los Lobos and British folk singer Bert Jansch and aspiritual a cappella encore of the traditional ISB song Bid You Goodnight. This is a spirited, arresting play. 
 
That being said, some of the most outstanding sets of the folk festival are by female American singers who also write their songs. More vivid inter alia, Leyla McCalla who was earlier with the Carolina Chocolate Drops at the National Hammered dulcimer and electric guitar, or banjo and cello alternately in her ‘personal and political songs,’ as she also does retains her Haitian roots. Lizzie No, on harp and guitar, marries gospel-political rage to an optimistic tearjerker in The Heartbreak Store. There’s also Peggy Seeger now 89 still bewildering, hilarious, furious and furious playing piano, banjo and guitar with friends Neill MacColl, Calum MacColl and daughter-in-law Kate St John. The lyrics resonate especially in the mouth of the lady to whom it was composed, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. 
 
 
At the British end of things, legends of Scottish folk-rock Capercaillie and Kent-based folk-rockers Oysterband are also well represented. Alas, the folk festival presents no new-experimentational traditional music until Hackney’s Hack-Poets Guild combine old broadsides’ dark ballads with contemporary, nervy three-part harmonizing a capella, backed by fiddle and bass guitar courtesy of Marry Waterson, Lisa Knapp, and Nathaniel Mann. 
 
Perhaps inevitably they do not get the audience they could attract for the second stage, although the great majority of Cambridge’s population applauded the Celts and US country musicians that were part of the Transatlantic Sessions concert. Nevertheless, it is quite impressive; however, where is the English traditional music? We are talking about the most famous folk festival, and there was barely any traditional English music seen there.