It was heartening that, at the twenty-third Ely Folk Festival, weekend and Saturday tickets sold out in advance for the first time. For Ely is a very good folk festival, and folk festivals are very good things. Thankfully, Ely doesn't change much from year to year in structure and character, so for old-timers it's soon easy to take the whole festive environment for granted. Perhaps one has to return to ordinary living to appreciate how special it is. It's all so friendly and peaceful; everyone's so nice. The children's play area, the high-quality food stalls, the folk-friendly boutiques, the tai-chi, the real ales, the morris teams, the scores of campers and much else all contribute to the feel of a benign alternative temporary community, which displays the ethos of the contemporary folk scene very positively, and justifies the considerable efforts of the organisers in making the festival happen.

In terms of the musical acts, however:

Friday night was particularly memorable as my introduction to the extraordinary Gerry Colvin, singer and songwriter for ColvinQuarmby (Quarmby is the bass guitarist). It was immediately evident that Colvin is an extraordinary talent, fascinating and unique. He is one of the few lyricists whose perspectives are unfailingly original, unfailingly engaging. On stage he has a remarkable edgy warmth. He mentioned that he was hyperactive as a child, and now displays a restless exuberance: he waves his hands in the air between songs, and communicates both ingenuous enthusiasm and sharp wit. His take on the world is one that merges compassion, humour and pessimism - a combination that always wins my heart with flying colours. Wise and vulnerable, a hero and an inspiration, verily. Musically, the band has a deceptively light folk-pop/soft-rock sound. New member Marion Fleetwood's fiddle adds a welcome extra texture.

Otherwise on Friday, fiddler and guitarist Lizzy Doe and Joe Bardwell opened proceedings well, and closing act Saor Patrol carried the residual energy from Colvin Quarmby to a robust climax with their ultra-Scottish pipes and drums numbers. They certainly looked the part, to boot.

Another hero, this time an old one, is Les Barker. In contrast to Eddie Colvin, Barker is stoically stationary, standing up to the world impassively with a barrage of deadpan punning poetry. In his way, he also delivers a worldly, resilient response to life that warms the heart. And oh, he's so much better reciting his poems unaccompanied, unfussy, than embellishing them with the tame pantomime humour of The Mrs Ackroyd Band. However, his partnership here with Keith Donnelly, under the moniker Idiot & Friend, actually did work well. Donnelly's Geordie extrovert style, energetic and spontaneous, complemented Barker's stoical presence surprisingly well, and Donnelly too writes with considerable wit. Donnelly contributed to the festival further with a children's concert, and an excellent compering of Marquee Two on Saturday night. Give the man a medal.

Yet a different sort of hero was Martin Simpson. Simpson calmly communicates essentially through his deep immersion in music, delivered primarily through outstanding workings of his guitar. Yet - and this is where we come to the essence of the virtue of folk music - his music communicates beyond individual talent, beyond the richness of his material, to produce a rare feeling of collective emotional empathy - us human beings, past and present, all in this life together.

Gareth Pearson, on the other hand, has the spectacular virtuosity of a rock guitar hero. It is indeed very exciting to watch him in action.

Show of Hands exemplify the best of the current folk scene: through their good-humoured style and unflashy musical talent an unpretentious humane concern and emotional vitality is communicated. It's pleasing that they have become so popular within the folk circuit, without much help from the media and the music business at large. Of course they performed well; of course they were very well received.

Jade is lovely, and the two fiddles enhanced her sound nicely, but the bass guitar and - especially - drums definitely detracted from it. Why oh why do sensitive acoustic musicians allow rock-style rhythm sections into their music? Drums are for serious rock, serious jazz or - as in Saor Patrol - serious rhythmic trad folk. In ballads, rhythm sections just dissipate the intensity and intimacy, producing mere easy-listening.

The acoustic intimacy that Jade lost was definitely present in the set of Gus MacGregor, whose singing was accompanied by his delicate guitar and tasteful embellishment from an acoustic bass. Gus creates a warm world of laid-back gentle freedom, very much in the vein of the folky origins of vintage West Coast singer-songwriters, notably James Taylor and Jackson Browne. The ambience goes beyond the soothing: it is optimistic and courageous in its licensing of thoughtful sensitivity. And Gus Macgregor really is good, as good a songwriter - and singer - as his influences indeed. I've subsequently listened to his recordings and they're very strong, drawing me into his appealing world of sensitive relationships astutely observed: he qualifies as a hero too.

Boo Hewerdine was somewhat similar, less fresh, but possessing the relaxed assurance of an old master. As with Show of Hands, he played to an audience knowing what kind of good show to expect, and he didn't disappoint. Again, demonstrated was the power of a thoughtful man, standing alone on stage, allowing intricate musicianship to lead communication into the hearts of an audience.

On a roll, Chris Sherbourn's wicked humour threatened to upstage the acoustic traditional music of both his performance with young fiddler Bella Hardy and the set of his band Last Night's Fun. Does LNF piper Nick Scott really not mind being the butt of suck relentless mockery? Yet both acts delivered well when they finally came to the music, indicating that, despite the contemporary ‘roots' scene featuring singer-songwriters galore and ubiquitous genre-bending, trad folk is being preserved most healthily. A similar impression was given by Kerfuffle, another of the ‘promising youngsters' bands, of which folk has seen several in recent years. And of course, traditional music ended proceedings triumphantly with a winning set from assured young masters Spiers and Boden, which even produced some dancing around the edges of the notoriously sedentary Marquee One audience.

So yes, a good time was had by all, indeed.

Writer: Rychard Carrington