Skip The Budgie

A very mixed bag is expected from this year's Acoustic Festival at The Folk House, after Last year's highly variable event. We arm ourselves with newspapers only to find to our great disappointment that Saturday papers don't seem to contain any Sudoku, just difficult puzzles and depressing news. A good article in the Times magazine on Popworld though, one of the best shows on TV at the moment!

Coffee'd up and settled at a nice table, we are just in time to see what Alex Taylor does. In his Sting-slept-with-David Gray voice, he sings MOR acoustic songs and has a friend with him who plays the jazzy fast widdly bits over the top. Their best songs are the covers, a very chilled version of Sting's Message In A Bottle goes down well. In a similar vein, Phil King picks up the torch and runs, well ambles with it. So interesting I can't think of anything to say.

Does Katey Brooks wake us out of our stupor? We've almost finished the Independent. No she doesn't. Her voice is thick and false sounding. I don't know why girls sing like this, a forced deep jazz voice that just makes them sound like they've got a cold. More coffee is needed before finding out if Sweet Laredo are any better. They're not. Mellow jazz-type music with another fake jazz singer who this time seems bent on singing all the wrong notes (by which I mean, they just sound wrong - she is IN tune) and making the songs drag. I thank the Lord for company of friends who remind me that I'm not the only one with these opinions.

I also thank the Lord for Caroline Martin, whose slightly chaotic set still retains the gentle wit and sometimes frightening bitterness amidst the simple tunes. Of course the bliss couldn't last long. Augustine are here to prove that dad's can rock, reminiscient of a recent McCartney effort I saw by accident late at night on telly. We laugh as the big singalong final song excites lead man Steve Hogg so much that he jumps of the stage and cuts his eyebrow on his own guitar.

Fearing that the wind would change on my grimace, we run away but return for the awesome Babel. Who are awesome. This set seemed to be louder and more intense than previous encounters, but definitely worth the wait.

Two bands worth seeing. Two. And I'd seen them before.