Show-stopping finale to this year's Grassington Festival

After a week of heavy rain, the Festival in the Field marquee had become an absolute quagmire, but the party spirit wasn’t dampened in the slightest as the now infamous Last Night Party entertained crowds of more than 1,000 well into the small hours.

Festival director Kate Beard said: “This year’s festival has been a resounding success, drawing festival goers from the length and breadth of the country. I must once again thank all the businesses and locals who support us and make it possible for Grassington to host this amazing festival which draws some of the biggest and best names from the world of music and entertainment.”

Here are reviews from some of last week's events:

Hackney Colliery Band, Festival Hall

AS a granddaughter of the South Yorkshire coalfields, I am suspicious of my cultural heritage being hijacked by southern types. Also I hate brass bands. I parked up in Grassington wondering vaguely what I was going to hear, and whether the Hackney Colliery Band did a good rendition of Amazing Love. But first, the support act.

“Come closer to the stage,” Issimo singer Abi invited us, “It's alright, Marc's had a bath.” So we did and these two – a quarter of the full band – took to the stage explaining that the others had got lost on the way there.

I suggest that these six people might want to get their sat-nav sorted out, because the duo's set absolutely took the roof off.

The audience danced the first part of the night away to an acoustic set featuring rock, salsa and reggae. Some sort of Greco-Russian circle dance sprang up and it was great. Really, really great. Look up Issimo online, then boogie on down. Follow that, you pretend miners.

So the pretend miners did. The Hackney Colliery Band appeared on stage with no muss, no fuss. A solid slamming drumbeat started up and the nine-piece got to work. And work they did, without let-up. They worked harder than Arthur Scargill on an exercise bike.

Their style ranges from improvisational jazz to Kanye West by way of modern classical. Hard to describe but perhaps the word “bangin'” will suffice. Their funk-jazz dance music had the audience throwing some shapes down in front of the stage and their sheer energetic power had the whole building throbbing.

This is clearly a band that rocks a festival on a regular basis; powerful, at a volume that would blast all the earwax out of my whippet. I am hoping that next time Grassington Festival will give this outfit the massive stage they deserve. Then you can rush to see them. Bring your dancing shoes, mind, or your clogs. They're not bad for a bunch of southerners.

Rosalind Fairclough

Skipton Building Society Camerata, The Last Summer, Bolton Abbey Priory

IN the beautiful setting of Bolton Abbey Priory to a packed audience, Skipton Building Society Camerata helped Grassington Festival mark the Centenary of The Battle of The Somme with an evening of poetry and music from World War One.

As award-winning actress Kathryn Pogson read Rupert Brooke’s poem, II. Safety in moving tones we settled in for a night of mixed emotions. A stark reminder of the horrors of The Great War and its battles but also the beauty and moving imagery of the music and words from authors like Sassoon and Owen.

Ben Crick conducted with huge talent as he steered us through his new arrangement of Six Songs from a Shropshire Lad by George Butterworth, who died in the Battle of the Somme, sung by baritone Phillip Wilcox. It was clear every word had meaning for Crick and for us as an audience amidst the grandeur of the Priory, as we were swept back to the early 20th century and a country and time which hardly knew what waited for it on the battlefields of France.

Both David Tollington and Nicholas Hurndal Smith played and sang beautifully, their French horn and tenor voice soaring above the strings as they complemented each other in Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor Horn and Strings. The horn seemed to call to the voice and the settings of poems from Ben Jonson to William Blake were both stirring and haunting.

As the evening wound to a close with the second piece by Elgar, the emotion of what was one of the worst battles of World War One had been bought to life through the concert. For the whole audience, there was a sense of loss and honour for those who had so willingly gone into such horror and had given their lives so that we could sit in the beautiful priory church at Bolton Abbey.

Ali Richards

Seth Lakeman, Festival Marquee

IT'S been over a decade since Seth Lakeman was catapulted to wider acclaim by being nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. He's come a long way since recording his perhaps still best-known work, Kitty Jay, in his Dartmoor kitchen. So far, in fact, he's now made it to Grassington Festival where he performed an evocative, energetic set of old favourites and new work from impending new album, Ballads of the Broken Few, to the delight of a packed house.

Support band Sound of the Sirens set the standard with an hour of charming, witty folk and faultlessly executed songs about love, break-ups and mental health issues. The festival marquee then became its own mini Glastonbury as Lakeman and his band of consummate musicians took to the stage, picking up the beat and dazzling with their multi-instrumental virtuosity. In the course of the evening, Lakeman himself played fiddle, viola, tenor guitar and banjo and adds his rich, edgy vocals to the musical tapestry.

It is perhaps in the quieter moments when Lakeman is alone on stage, one man and his fiddle, that the full poignancy and pathos in his lyrics can be appreciated. A natural storyteller, Lakeman fuses folk harmonics with a profound honesty in his lyrics. Inspired by the tales and landscapes of his native West Country, Lakeman explores the tragedies of real human lives too. Blacksmiths, steam train drivers and lifeguards are just some of his dramatic personae with the song Solomon Browne telling the story of the 1981 lifeboat disaster at Penlee.

Both retrospective and forward-looking, Lakeman's music is kaleidoscopic and inclusive: a music, and more importantly, a voice that seeks lessons from the past and offers its wisdom to the future. As the lights came up in the festival marquee, we were all left a little wiser and made our way homewards perhaps a little happier and even a little kinder too.

Mary Colson

Live at the Marquee, Festival Marquee

JUSTIN Moorhouse was the ideal compère for this highlight of Grassington Festival. He was perhaps the most at home in the Yorkshire landscape, albeit hailing from Manchester. His fairly old-school approach to stand-up still felt up-to-date and embued with just enough risk to get the Grassington audience sitting up and taking notice. His was the voice of experience introducing the first act, with the youngest of the three guests, Rob Beckett.

Beckett is a bright young thing, the kind of character produced if Dickens scripted TOWIE. His Artful Dodger charm delighted the audience as he pattered through his experiences of marriage and Christmas with the in-laws.

After a brief interval it was time for Moorhouse to introduce Shappi Khorsandi, daughter of an outlawed Iranian writer. Her brand of comedy is striking. Within typically self-deprecating tales of failed relationships and motherhood exists an insightful commentary on race relations and feminism.

There was a slight sense of clock-watching on the part of the first two acts, and Moorhouse himself, which was a shame, but all became clear as they made way for the true highlight of the night – Rich Hall and the Hoedown Band. It goes without saying that Hall and the band are talented, and the songs had the audience in stitches. Beyond that though, Hall creates a relationship with his audience through a kind of friendly aggression that works for everyone. After previous gigs at the Skipton Auction Mart, Rich was welcomed to the marquee with open arms and seemed endearingly chuffed to be there.

The night was not without its technical hitches, but the laughter rolled across the Dales all the same.

Hannah Bridge