He tottered up to the stage with a seemingly laid back attitude and immediately when he reached the microphone began to start his set. No introduction from Jake Bugg as if he was expected to be announced before. This wasn’t a commercialised concert this was him playing a stripped back acoustic set with keyboard player Micheal Patrick.  He picked up his brown guitar and began singing almost seconds from being on the stage.

On My One was his starter song which is a personal favourite of mine, it wasn’t too different from the original track off the 2016 album.

Jake played his guitar to the glowing faces of youth that had pushed forward past all the traditional folk festival goers of Cambridge. It was clear that he was wanting people to appreciate his music and appeal to everybody at the festival but a few super fans had sneaked their way in.

“It’s a real pleasure to be here tonight in Cambridge it’s lovely weather for it.”

He has a new album coming out in September and he explained that he was going to play some on his set as a teaser.

He then went on to play Simple as This which really showed his talent for guitar and expressed his vocal range very well. He faded out the volume and dropped the lyrics and played the guitar alone making it seem really atmospheric so people in the audience could appreciate the string music rather than just hearing his voice. It made a nice refreshing change to his set in comparison to when I saw him play Leeds Festival when he was commercialised and less musical and more performance based.

Bugg was fierce whilst performing Trouble Town, he even sang up to ceiling with his whole head tilted back to project his voice, it felt slightly strained but it sounded so powerful. I thought he was really putting his heart in to the performance and changed my mind about him not making an initial contact with the audience introduction wise.

He seemed as though his attitude had lifted and he’d become fully engaged in his music and making the crowd get lost in the music alone without any theatrical performance needed.

It felt so raw and stripped back it was amazing to finally hear him basically alone without the band. It gave a really different vibe to his regular set.

He then played a song he wrote when he was 16 and he slowed it right down, Love Me The Way You Do, It sounded to me like it was a love ballad.

It was was refreshing to hear an acoustic version of Taste It, it was very calming but he then sped it up halfway through which was an exciting twist.

He then changed over guitars to his black one and then played Love, Hope and Misery.

He went on to play several more songs including some new ones that I am so excited to hear when they are released.

I must credit him on the beautiful atmosphere he created when playing Broken the lighting was a tinged blue,  and he gave a direct stare to where I was stood. I thought that perhaps he’d recognised me from the time we met at Stansted Airport- (click here to read about it) but I think his direct gaze was more aimed towards the large camera above my head. Actually felt moved by his performance it wasn’t theatrical and like I’ve mentioned before it was raw and emotive. He’s a great performer but you need to see his Acoustic set to appreciate his musical ability.

Now we are going to respect the privacy and not write about his new songs even though all the people that watched this performance know what they were like we’ll keep you guessing !

Keep up with Jake Bugg: click here to access his Official Website

He has announced an Acoustic UK tour and his new album is coming out soon!!