People need festivals to escape into an experience outside their everyday lives. However, this year the outside world intruded in the form of volcanic ash and politics. The latter was embodied in the Festival’s support of  the ‘Folk Against Fascism ‘ campaign against the British National Party and its repellent hijacking of folk music to serve its own racist agenda.

The ash cloud meant that Torivaki didn’t make it in from Grenoble and Spiers and Boden didn’t make it out to Austria. But ‘it’s an ill wind that blows nobody some good’, as oft muttered in the snug of The Sheep Wranglers Arms, so the festival kindly gave S and B the vacant Sunday slot and John & Jon proceeded to play a storming unscheduled gig to the delight of everybody.

Eclectic harmony folk rockers Circus Envy were the volcanic dust heroes, making it in from Alicante and still playing a high energy, sweaty set including the highly topical standout song, ‘Going Nowhere’.

This was a year of headliners delivering, and none more so than Bellowhead. If the folk festival were a stick of rock, Bellowhead would be engraved through the middle. They made their debut jointly in 2004, and their bi-annual reappearances are birthday parties in front of a devoted fan base. Unlike their 2008 gig here, this time the music was better than the partying. Now a mature six years old, the brass section, playing everything from funk to Handel riffs, has become truly integral to the maxi-folk eleven-piece. Pete Flood is as inventive and subtle a percussionist as you’ll hear anywhere, and with more band members arranging, and re-inventing Bellowhead standards they have never sounded better. Their hard core fans, the Bellowheads, were really into the gig and helped get the whole Town Hall really throbbing. Great.

Previously I thought of Warsaw Village Band as ‘worthy’ for seeking to save Polish traditions from disappearing under waves of globalised europop.  Seeing them live, I understood why there is an excited buzz about them. The line-up of upright skinny double bass, cello & two violins plus percussion created a dark pulsing intensity wrapped around a dirty, earthy Balkan drone..  At the centre was the remarkable singer & cellist, Maja. Her voice as well as doing Bjork, Kate Bush, Ute Lemper, and open-throated calls akin to Sami singer Mairi Boine stretched easily to the romantic, tender, lustful and satisfied. Singing ’Heartbeat’ she totally held the audience, accompanied only by the plucked strings of cello and single violin. The standout of the set was a Balkan blues featuring a brilliant double bass solo. I and many others were converted.

The mystery of Jez Lowe is why such a good songwriter, singer and laid back witty charmer is not as big a name (along with his group The Bad Pennies), as Chris Wood, who followed him onto the stage. It is perhaps Lowe’s deep roots in the north-east, and his overriding concern regarding the human cost of industrial decline which prevents him winning the more universal appeal that Wood’s songs enjoy. Both played captivating sets.

Others who impressed were the piano accordion duo of Paul Hutchinson & Karen Tweed and the gravel-voiced concertina-playing Steve Turner who on this showing has been too long absent from the scene.   Joanne Louise Parker’s set was worth hearing simply for her song ‘Worshippers of Ice’, a contender for best of the festival.

Local purveyors of bucolic gothic folk, Telling The Bees limbered up for playing The Oxford Punt with their biggest gig so far, a debut appearance on the main stage, opening the festival in front of a full house eager for Bellowhead. If the Bees had nerves, they didn’t show in a confident performance which was also brave, as they gave a debut to a new number and an outing to their tricky instrumental ‘Fithfath’. Their inexperience on the big stage did show in their set selection, as there was no ‘Otmoor Forever’ , their rousing song about a little local rebellion which would have been a cert to go down well with the Bellowhead crowd. In addition, the pacing of the set was a bit off: just as they and the audience were beginning to warm to each other, they ran out of time.

With the headliners holding the attention on the main stage there was less opportunity to catch other local performers (the festival boasted a mammoth forty five acts). Despite this, other locals whom I caught on the second stage doing well were Giles Lewin with Steph West, the duo of Colin & Jane from Telling the Bees, and the alt pastoral folk pop group The Mountain Parade who might just have the potential to become the next Stornoway.

This seventh festival was one of the best ever musically, and I’ve not even mentioned the strong spoken word strand running alongside the musical bill, with storytelling, poetry and festival founder, Tim Healey entertaining a packed room with his local  knowledge of  the mythical ‘Green Man’.  However, at earlier festivals I recall seriously strange but often magical one-off events, notably an Icelandic bard singing ancient sagas into the night. I hope such moments have not disappeared from the festival forever.    

Icelandic bards or not, the Festival will definitely return just as happily next year, especially if we all do what we can to  keep folk out of the hands of the fascists.