Shrewsbury 2011 - Day 4

Normally we would have gone swimming on Sunday morning but this year we were on duty at 11am and couldn't get to the pool and back in time. It did mean that we could settle down with the Observer after breakfast. Not something we have done recently because we usually spend some time at Sense on Sunday morning - after the gym.
The number of issues is much lower. I think that it is because the Festival has now been based on the same site since 2007 and has had no need for major change in physical layout or program. Also the team of stewards now contains a solid core of regulars who know what they are doing.
There was a woman who had to be taken away in an ambulance because she had damaged her ankle in the dance tent - falling over her own kids. Hopefully that's as bad as it gets.
After lunch Jean went to Chris Wood and Andy Cutting and I went to see Sam Carter. He still has only two really good songs but sounded much more interesting when Sam Sweeney joined him. The next item on our program was Spiers and Boden but that was a mistake and they were not on for another hour. We had to creep out before the end because we were on duty again.
The evening plan was, The Cecil Sharp Project followed by The Imagined Village. It didn't really work. We expecte the Cecil Sharp Project would have been similar to The Darwin Project in the previous year but it didn't have the narrative flow and the performers were too happy to sit at the back of the stage as if they were in a club singaround. We left in the interval and went to the main stage in order to get seats for The Imagined Village.
This meant that we saw the last songs from the Sweetback Sisters - an OK American folk rock band.
We saw one of the first performances of this project designed to display the heritage and links between English, Asian and Caribbeen cultures. That included, Billy Brag, Martin Carthy, Benjamin Zepheniah, and Satnam Singh. This was a different show with no real theme and again we left before the end. Not a good evening but it was saved when we heard the sound of Spiers and Boden ringing out as we walked back to our caravan. We saw their last two songs and our faith in festivals was restored.