Deep into his Sunday night main stage set, Billy Bragg is halfway through one of his oldest hits, Greetings to the New Brunette, when an ecstatic roar spreads rapidly through the crowd, all the way back to the food stands: the England women’s football team have won the Euros final. It’s no disturbance to Bragg – on the contrary, he’s been receiving constant updates on the match throughout his set. Whooping and yelling, he immediately leads the audience in a rousing rendition of Jerusalem. Having already ranted passionately about trans rights, global warming and male violence, he expounds on why we should all rejoice in England’s win.
It’s an apt microcosm of a thoroughly good-natured event. Cambridge Folk festival is essentially celebrating its very survival after the pandemic, and the audience flocks to tai chi and willow-weaving workshops to discover, with no small sense of relief, that the easy charm that has sustained this compact festival for 57 years has been unharmed by a two-year hiatus.
