Our festival weekend got off to an interesting start. We chose to camp at a local campsite in preference to the festival site and the weather had been fine as we pitched our tent.

However as we drove up to Wickham a large black cloud hung over it and the heavens opened as we drove onto the field which served as the car park and campsite. The field was already well soaked from the wet summer and it was cutting up really badly. We decided to try and leave but the way out was uphill and we were soon stuck in the mud.

Shortly after this they stopped any further cars entering the field and a couple of 4x4's started to tow off cars that wanted to leave. Unfortunately we didn't have a towing eye in our car and it took a while to try and borrow one, during which time my wife managed to get the photo of the rainbow over the big top. Eventually a towing eye was procured and after a slightly hair-raising tow we were free.

We got to the stage just in time for the start of the Jethro Tull set. There were a lot of people in attendance but more than half of them had only come for the evening for the Tull performance. Presumably most of them were parked in the field so goodness knows how they got them all off.

The rest of the weekend was just fine. The sun shone and the mud on the festival site was baked to a strange consistency, crusty on top, spongy underneath. The acts were mostly good, some were excellent and the sound guys did a great job. Food stalls, beer tent and loos were all reasonable by festival standards. Next time I'll do a review of the acts.

Jethro Tull - Ian Anderson seems to have adopted an odd mannerism with his vocals, singing miles off the beat. Possibly he does this as he finds it a struggle to hit the high notes these days. Leaving that aside this was an excellent set with material culled from all Tull eras going right back to This Was and Stand Up.

The Spooky Mens Chorale - Aussie male voice choir, loads of humour, unusual repertoire, great fun.

Les Barker - deja vu, but always raises a smile.

Ashley Hutchings' Rainbow Chasers - horrible, boring songs, nasty shrill fiddle sound.

The Mick West Band - Scottish singer with guitar, bouzouki and percussion backing. Good.

Cherish The Ladies - regulation Irish music from this all-female band, but the set was made by some excellent Irish step dancing from Declan (didn't catch the surname).

Hans Theessink - only caught the end of his set, but he sounded pretty good.

The British Blues Quartet - the crowd loved them, but I hated it with their endless 12-bar progressions. The only redemption was Maggie Bell's singing but she was only onstage for about half the numbers. Guys, leave the singing to Maggie, eh?

The Hamsters - I'd only seen them once before, maybe fifteen years ago and I'd forgotten how good they were. This was a great set, bluesy rock, massive sound for a three-piece. You need to be a pretty accomplished guitarist to manage Hendrix covers but Slim carries it off with aplomb.

Feckless - amateurish.

Lisa Knapp - supposedly a young rising talent but for me Lisa and her two accompanists need to do more on all fronts - better choice of material, getting a tighter sound and general stage presence.

Luka Bloom - Christy Moore's younger brother, who got off on the wrong foot for me. Yes, we all know the war in Iraq was a big mistake and George Bush is a clown but you are preaching to the converted here. I warmed to him later in the set, impressed by his playing and his songs.

Yves Lambert & Le Bebert Orchestra - the new outfit from the French Canadian maestro, previously with La Bottine Souriante. They were just wonderful and had most of the tent on their feet.

Eivor - give her a horned helmet and the flaxen-haired, Faroese Eivor would be a shoe-in for the role of one of the Valkyries. She also possesses a fine voice which she put to good use on wide range of material.

Kathryn Tickell - we've seen Northumbrian piper Kathryn and her band many times down the years and this was a great set that had the tent jumping.

Eddie Reader - the early part of Eddie's set didn't really grab the attention, but it improved as it went along and by the end we were on our feet and well into it.

Donnie Munro Band - competent performance from the ex-Runrig frontman and his six-piece band, but I just don't like his songs. The crowd thinned out over the course of the set, so I probably wasn't alone in this regard.

Boo Hewerdine - opened up on Sunday, playing with Eivor's backing musician on slide guitar. I'm pretty sure they hadn't played together before but the guy was such a good busker that you'd never have known it. Nice set.

Dean Friedman - “I know we Americans have ticked off a lot of people here with our actions around the world, but is that really any justification for sending us Posh and Becks?” Nice quip from Dean. I was surprised how many of his songs I knew.

Hazel O'Connor - as my wife remarked, “She looks a bit of a handful”. Good powerful set, backed with guitar and harp.

Neck - a psycho-ceilidh band apparently. What is a psycho-ceilidh - an Irish shindig where everyone kills each other? You might well develop homicidal tendencies after listening to this noisy, talentless bunch.

The Men They Couldn't Hang - somehow in 20 years of following this music I've managed not to have seen them before. So, we didn't know the material but we were left with the feeling that they could grow on us.

Shooglenifty - I quite like The Shooglers but I'd be the first to admit that their music is all a bit samey. We only saw them about six months ago, so you should get a sense of “Ah, it's this one”, but somehow you don't. Their set was also marred by far too much kick drum in the mix. There’s something quite unsettling about they way that the fiddler stares into the middle distance whilst contorting his body into weird shapes whilst the mandolinist surveys the audience with a look that says “Ha, I’m up here, you’re not!”.

Eliza Carthy & The Ratcatchers – In general I’m not an enormous Eliza Carthy fan, but this band makes a pretty decent sound and I enjoyed this set.

The Saw Doctors – what better act could you ask for to round off a festival like this. The Docs never disappoint and they were in fine form to send us all home happy.