I'm absolutely no fan of The Killers, but I'd be intrigued to hear that.

Well, the original arrangement was always a bit syrupy....certainly not my favourite Sandy song.  Fwiw, I think Vicki sings Sandy very well and I've really enjoyed her over the decades.  I've only just listened to the performance now.  It sounds like Vicki singing Sandy Denny to me... Twee sounds a bit pejorative to me.  I've got a friend who insists on calling Vashti, Vashtwee and it drives me to distraction (despite being funny)!

If the question was directed at me, absolutely not (apart from maybe one or two things in her very early repertoire). The adjective was directed at Vicki Clayton's performance of the song. David said syrupy -yes, that fits the bill for me

White Dress did sound a bit syrupy, I personally would have preferred a barnstorming John the Gun or something similar, but horses for courses and all that!

I see the new Brandon Flowers album has David Rawlings on guitar, an interesting combination.

[/quote].Yes, smaller festivals are definitely likely, but we have to be able to take seats so that’s no 1 consideration. The line up is no 2 - we’re a broad church musically but it’ll need to be over 50% to get us there.
But first we’ve got to sell the house with all that entails (getting rid of 65 years of accumulated junk treasures…) a busy year!
[/quote]

As I posted elsewhere, I can heartily recommend the New Forest Folk Festival. I went for the first time this  year, and it is definitely the closest in ‘vibe’ to Cropredy of the several different festivals I’ve attended over the years. 3000 capacity, lovely people, and the singalongs and workshops give it an excellent community feel. Great music too!

I thought it was lovely to see Vikki again, not before time. Clearly time has moved on but her contributions when she first appeared were stunning, particularly Tam Lin.

Genuine question - do you find Sandy 'twee'?

Thanks!

So,my summing up
(tl;dr lovely jubbly but hard work with the heat. Roll on next year.

So I was dreading being badly incapacitated with a gammy knee but an injection I had 2 weeks before finally kicked in (excuse the pun) and made the whole thing doable.

Big shout out first to Trad Arrr, who gave their official final bow on Wednesday at the Mill in Banbury. A stonking set from a bunch of first class musicians and all round good eggs, who carried the torch for folk rock and will be sorely missed.

The oppressive heat changed my usual strategy this year and I didn't even see the village - I conserved energy by staying between F8 and the field. Weird kind of annoyances abounding like phone not charging because it was too hot added to the whole thing being just harder work than normal (but well worth it). So, to the bands:

After a lovely acoustic start from the chaps, Banter were very enjoyable folk rocky stuff. Soft machine were a no-brainer for a tent break, but I was glad to hear some of it over the hedges as  I walked back, as it confirmed my suspicion that it wasn't for me. I'll stick to Caravan for my Canterbury fixes.
(random canterbury scene trivia - Robert Wyatt's next band Matching Mole was a play on the French Machine Molle, or Soft Machine...)

Missed Matt Bragg and Turin Brakes - I'm sure the latter would have passed an hour pleasantly but wasn't to be. But Thursday was topped off by the magnificent Vent du Nord, even better than my memory of the last time. Brilliant stuff.

So, the relatively Siberian Friday was opened with the lovey experience of the local schoolkids. To see the looks of awe and glee on their faces was heartwarming and a lovely start to the day. Danny and the Champions sounded Ok from under the shade of the trees. Danny Bradly is one to watch, with flashes of brilliance and occasional hints of Roy Harper Lite. I feel like he hasn't truly found his niche yet and is still exploring, but defo one to watch.
Celtic Social Club were enjoyable though it seemed to me they had to keep remembering to put some Celtic bits in to honour their name.
MGW I missed for a tent break, but I was lucky to catch the second half of Breabach  and a welcome bagpipe fix. The highlight of my day (if not the festival) was the Spookies - a truly class act who've simply got better and better. ... pity they couldn't have switched billing with RT (***heresy alert**) for while I appreciate his guitaring and songwriting genius I simply can't stand his voice, and it gets worse with time (IMHO of course...). As for Zara Philips, not sure if she's worthy of a billing - she just seemed to be an OK backing singer to me.

So, the positively Arctic Saturday with no car boot or Digance started OK with Gerry Colvin (feathers instead of hankies - a kind of surreal and (presumably intended) touch; and the day got better with Rob Jones etc - energy, intelligence and nice feelgood stuff.

The Haar - a one-trick pony that could have been so much better given their obvious talent. They could have used more original or diverse material for their brooding treatment that might have suited better than a cliched list of songs obviously not meant to be treated that way. I had to choose between Barbara and Hayseed Dixie and I'm glad I chose Barbara. For the reviews they seem to be very marmite, but I love marmite. Where better to be irrepressibly quirky and English than at an irrepressibly quirky English festival. Stackridge meets Divine Comedy - what's not to like?

Pound and Butterworth brushed over me as I happily put faces to a few more avatars at the toast. Yes, he can play a mouth organ and she can play a guitar. Grand.

So the chaps themselves - on fine form IMO. No real complaints about the setlist apart from that bloody Bankruptured - they have hundreds of tunes to choose from, time to switch from that one. Nice to See Ralph. Vicki Clayton, I'm sorry, was tweer than some of Rick's worst songs (is tweer a word?) - and I hate it when people sing "and" at the start of every line for no particular reason. MOTL once again made it all worth while, and I can't wait till next year.

Big shout for F8/Cream of the Crop, my base for about 5 years now and now meeting some good regular friends there. Nice to have background music around the site, and I was delighted to catch Leatherat for the first time. The buzz on F8 was brilliant on Saturday - they're really getting their act together.

So, a lovely weekend, hard work but well worth it. As for next year? Well, first I'll be happy just to get there (as I'm sure will many other of that certain demographic). Maybe it will be the last one, and if so, as Mick says, I hope with a bang not a whimper. Personally, if the chaps want to bow out, I'd be happy to see the mantle passed on to a younger crowd if they could still keep alive the spirit of all that's good about Cropredy. I'd call it the Ledge - where people meet in a beautiful place in a spirit of love to celebrate and contemplate the past, present and future (as I believe was RT's original concept of the song).

Sorry for the long stream of consciousness, my mouse got carried away. How many sleeps now?