It helped, of course, that the sun beat down upon the well-appointed site below the home of the earls of Mansfield and historic Scottish coronation spot.
But it was just as important, I’d guess, that this was a festival where the women outnumbered the men (although the costuming made it hard to tell one from the other), the age range was as all-encompassing as it could be, and there were as many happy families as hen parties, alongside random mixed gender-groups of Smurfs and superheroes.
Amid all the bonhomie, it was crucial that they were not short-changed musically. Some, like Doctor & the Medics (Two Tribes and hit cover Spirit in the Sky) and local heroes Fiction “Feels Like Heaven” Factory, kept their contributions brief and were better for it.
The other Scots were well up to the mark, Hue & Cry continuing their quarter-century policy of providing employment for some of the nation’s top jazz talent, and The Bluebells, augmented by a fiddler from the French Wives, supplying the obvious anthem for the weekend with Young At Heart. They also embraced the participation of the weekend’s hard-working host Clare Grogan, who then answered many requests by dusting off Altered Images’ Happy Birthday with the house band the following day.
The performances were a slick mix of full line-ups and those session men and it was often impossible to detect the join, with ABC’s Martin Fry and sideman Matt Backer providing the real climax of Saturday’s bill. It was Backer who subsequently lifted the lacklustre Bananarama duo by coming back on to make up the trio’s full choreography.
Sunday’s line-up built more progressively with The Real Thing’s a cappella exchanges with the crowd and Toyah’s remarkable hair notable waymarks towards a lavish finale by The Human League, which ran the full gamut from Being Boiled to Night People by way of all the hits we came to hear.
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