To date, the band have recorded two albums, the second of which, “The Continuation” became part of the festival merch desk haul following their 2014 appearance. It’s an album that’s received regular plays ever since.

The short instrumental title track sets the mood, a melodic number with the main theme alternating between flute and lead guitar. The lengthy “The Masque” is a song of two parts, a pastoral opening section then an extended instrumental workout in which every member bar the rhythm section takes multiple solos. After an opening in a similar vein to the title track, “Not Alone” builds into a big soaring ballad. The cod-reggae of “Giant Prize is perhaps the only dud, but at just over three minutes it’s mercifully short. Then we’re into the grand finale of “The Gamer”, a sometimes completely bonkers 24 minute epic which mercilessly takes the piss out of obsessive video game players who never go outside.

This is old-school retro-prog with little concession to contemporary sounds, going from flute-led pastoral passages to occasional irruptions of big band jazz. What they do have is a strong sense of melody, which if anything is most prominent in some of the flute and guitar lines rather than the vocals. This a band who are not shy about embracing the odd cliché; we’ve even got a minimoog solo consisting of minor-key arpeggios in 9/8 time at one point. But they’re also a band who do it well enough to be able to get away with it. There is something about them that rises above generic Euro-prog.

Both albums are listed on sale on the band’s website, though it doesn’t look as if it’s been updated recently, though their facebook page is still active. The band are currently working on a third album.

Sunday was something of a Ladies’ Day, with six out of the eight main stage acts featuring female lead singers. First of these were the seven-piece T Clemente band, who’s flown all the way from San Francisco at their own expense to play the festival. Their tight and polished West Coast AOR sound made a very strong impression for an opening act, and left the impression we’ll be hearing more of this band in the future.

With a catsuited singer who goes under the name of “The Duchess”, Space Elevator had a very dramatic visual appeal, and had the music to back it up too, with a great hard rock AOR sound. Alongside original numbers about obsessive-compulsive disorder, being dumped, and love letters to Doctor Who, they threw in excellent covers of Thin Lizzy’s “Don’t Believe a Word” and Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator”. Perhaps their only flaw was their use of too much programmed keys rather than having a flesh-and-blood keyboard player in the band.

Making a welcome return after their superb performance on the same stage in 2014, Norway’s The Windmill were the most Prog band of the day; with a flute and a steampunk-dressed keyboard player their music is soaring, melodic and epic with the focus on symphonic composition rather than instrumental virtuosity. Alongside a lengthy new number their set drew heavily from “Continuum”, although sadly there wasn’t time for the 24-minute “The Gamer”. All heady stuff and ticks all the right boxes for the hardcore prog fans.

The Heather Findlay Band were eagerly anticipated. They’ve gone through some changes from the band that toured in April, with former Cloud Atlas man Martin Ledger taking over on lead guitar, Touchstone’s Henry Rogers taking over on drums, and the band slimmed down to a six-piece without a rhythm guitarist. From the performance they delivered you’d never have guessed this was the first live appearance of this full lineup. They combined highlights from Mantra Vega’s “The Illusion’s Reckoning” with older Mostly Autumn standards and a couple of rocked-up Odin Dragonfly numbers. Losing the rhythm guitar didn’t seem to leave holes in the sound; Angela Gordon’s keys took a bigger role, and Heather played acoustic guitar on some songs. On “Caught in a Fold” Sarah Dean took over on keys while Angela played the flute parts. One thing that’s notable about the various incarnations of Heather’s band is the way they totally reinvent the songs to fit the instrumentation of the current band. Martin Ledger proved an inspired choice as guitarist, nailing the guitar parts on both the Mantra Vega songs and the older Mostly Autumn material. One surprise was a very powerful “Unoriginal Sin”, which didn’t feature in the April tour, with Heather playing keys. An epic Carpe Diem and the spiralling title track of The Illusion’s Reckoning bought the very strong set to a close.

Purson seem on the cusp of far bigger things. Their take on late sixties psychedelic rock has long been embraced by the underground prog scene, but they’ve been making waves of late in more mainstream waters. They’ve a band with a look that exactly matches their sound, as if they’ve all stepped out of a time machine from 1969, complete with the right vintage guitars. Rosalie Cunningham on lead vocals and lead guitar is the focus, playing raw and dirty riffs and reeling off solos with heavy use of the wah-wah pedal. Despite the brief interruption of a collapsing keyboard stand, they delivered a very powerful set. It does leave you wondering how much longer we’ll still be able to see this band on stages like this.

It’s been a long, long time since Odin Dragonfly have played anything other than the occasional very short support set, so their appearance on Stage Three was a rare chance to see Heather and Angela together as an acoustic duo., the two of them playing their second set of the day. Compared to the rock dynamics on the main stage this was beautiful chill-out stuff with minimal instrumentation, and the emphasis on the vocal harmonies. There were moments when they came over a little under-rehearsed, especially the stripped-down take on Mostly Autumn’s “Evergreen”, but it was still an enjoyable set, with songs from the 2007 album “Offerings” alongside stripped-down versions of Mostly Autumn’s “Eyes of the Forest” and “Bitterness Burnt”, and a new song which might even end up on a long-awaited follow-up to “Offerings”.

The clash with Odin Dragonfly meant I only caught the end of Curved Air’s set, but from what I saw it seemed like the tail end of a barnstorming set, with two of the biggest hits right at the end, “Back Street Luv” as the closer. With so many progressive-leaning bands with female lead singers on the bill over the course of the weekend it’s fitting Curved Air were one of them. Sonya Kristina is an absolute legend and still in fine voice. And they’re yet another reminder that progressive rock needs more violins.

Mostly Autumn are a fixture in this festival, having played every year since at least 2008, and the weekend somehow wouldn’t be the sane without them. Despite having seen the band more than a hundred times, they still retain the capacity to astound. They began as on their spring tour, with the instrumental “Out of the Inn” which starts as a celtic-folk jig centred on Angela Gordon’s flute, and develops into a hard rock workout, before Olivia Sparnenn made her customary dramatic entrance for “In for the Bite”, a song from the recently-released Josh & Co album. Much of the early part of the set was hard-rocking numbers from the recent albums since Olivia took over as lead singer, with “Skin on Skin” showcasing Alex Cromaty’s remarkable drumming. In contrast, the beautiful stripped-back balled “Silhouette of Stolen Ghosts” was a change of pace. The came a truly epic version of “Mother Nature” performed with an exceptional intensity even by their standards. The obligatory closer “Heroes Never Die” ought to have been worn smooth by over-exposure by now, but even that packed a powerful emotional punch.

It wasn’t easy for headliners Focus to follow that. Like Curved Air they’re a legendary band who are regulars on the festival circuit, but with their two biggest hits quite unlike the rest of their material they can come over as marking time until the hits at the end. But Focus do what they do, and the chilled-out jazz-rock workouts like the lengthy “Eruption” deserved to be appreciated on their own merits. But after the slow start, “Sylvia” and “Hocus Pocus” came as expected at the end, and the festival finished in a frenzy of air-guitar and yodelling, and so it should.

This weekend turned out to a good candidate for the best CRF yet. The bill was a great mix of old favourites and new discoveries. The old favourites showed everyone why they keep getting invited back, and newer bands rose to the big occasion. The main stage bill across Saturday and Sunday was remarkable in its consistent quality this year; there are plenty of acts who’d played earlier years who would have seemed out of place this year.

While some higher profile festivals this year had bills heavy with heritage acts (HRH Prog and Ramblin’ Man, I’m looking at you), it was good to see representatives of the current generation of bands making up the bulk of the bill. It was also good to see so many women on the bill; can you imagine Glastonbury or Reading featuring six female frontwomen out of eight acts?

Mostly Autumn, The Windmill and Pearl Handled Revolver are the latest bands to added to the bill for the 2016 Cambridge Rock Festival, all of whom played the last festival in 2014.

For those who’s tastes run towards progressive rock and metal, Sunday was always going to be the day to be looked forward to the most.

The weather turned nasty at the beginning of the day courtesty of Hurricane Bertha. Amidst some doubts over whether this would go ahead the main stage marquee didn’t open up until the first band were already standing on stage waiting for the audience to file in. They were Norway’s The Windmill, and they proceeded to play some epic symphonic prog. There were echoes of Renaissance and fellow Norwegians ÄnglagÃ¥rd, and their music went from pastoral atmospherics to heavier guitar-led passages. It featured heavy use of flute, and some great three-part vocal harmonies, their set climaxing with the swirling twenty-minute epic “The Gamer”.

Credo followed that with another entertaining set With ornate synth runs, fluid overdriven guitar solos and a singer with a touch of Fish’s vocal mannerisms they tick all the neo-prog boxes. But even through they’re not doing anything stunningly original, the strength of their songcraft and the passion of the performance meant they went down well with the crowd.

Apocalyptic weather swirled outside during Winter in Eden’s set, such that the wind speeds were getting the stewards worried. But inside the tent the most metal act on the main stage so far kicked up such a storm themselves that many people didn’t even notice. They rose above some rough sound early on with a powerful set, their British take on Euro symphonic metal eschewing choirs and kitchen sinks in favour of neo-classical keyboard flourishes and good old-fashioned lead guitar, with Vicky Johnson the first of several great female vocalists to grace the main stage on the day.

Heidi Widdop seems to make a habit of Cambridge Rock Festival debuts. Back in 2010 the main stage saw her first gig as the new lead singer of Breathing Space. The following year marked the very first gig for the short-lived Stolen Earth. 2014 saw her new project, Cloud Atlas, playing only their second gig. Despite having a stand-in rhythm section, they turned in another strong performance, with Martin Ledger’s evocative guitar tones dominating the band’s rich and atmospheric sound, and Heidi herself on great form.

Mr So and So just get better and better as a live band. Another regular act for the festival, they followed up their 2011 and 2012 appearances with one of their best shows yet. They’ve gone up a gear since the release of their fifth album “Truth and Half Lies”, far darker and heavier than what had gone before, and that album featured heavily in their set. The hugely melodic dual male/female lead vocals of Shaun McGowan and Charlotte Evans and shredding lead guitar of Dave Foster give them a distinctive identity. This gig marked the farewell appearance of drummer Stuart Browne with hints that the band may take a radically different direction without him. He certainly went out on a high.

Mostly Autumn have been on top live form this year, and their festival performance was no exception. Aside from the two standards “Evergreen” and “Heroes Never Die” from the band’s early years, the rest of the nine-song set all came from Olivia Sparnenn’s tenure as lead singer, drawing heavily from their latest, “Dressed in Voices”. They’ve evolved a long way from their celtic-folk origins towards a harder-edged rock sound, but there’s still a lot of emotional depth, as evidenced by Olivia’s signature number “Questioning Eyes”. Another highlight was “Skin on Skin” with Alex Cromarty’s spectacular drum pyrotechnics. Much like Chantel McGregor on Friday, this was a headline level performance.

Mostly Autumn’s set was going to be a hard act to follow, and the task fell to Norwegian metal act Jorn, fronted by Jorn Lande. Yes, the whole thing was as melodramatic as hell, and yes the songwriting did sound a bit too close to that of the late, great Ronnie Dio for comfort, but Jorn still put on a great show. At a time when a lot of metal bands are fronted by either cookie monsters or opera-trained sopranos, it was good to hear a top-class old-school hard rock vocalist. Though we could have done without the Tufnelesque solo spot from his guitarist; somebody needs to tell him it’s 2014, not 1982!

Headliners Wishbone Ash are one of those classic rock veterans down to one original member, guitarist Andy Powell. Weilding his signature Flying V he led the band through a mix of standards from their early heyday and newer blues-rock workouts. While it might have been nice to have heard more of their highly melodic 70s material, they kept, perhaps wisely, to the songs that Andy Powell could do justice to vocally, and the emphasis was more on the twin lead guitars, with highlights including “Engine Overheat” and the epic “Phoenix”. Even though they were nowhere near the best band of the day, that was more a reflection on the strength of the rest of the bill, and it was still an enjoyable performance.

And so ended the eleventh Cambridge Rock Festival. As is often the case the veteran acts topping the bill pulled in the punters while the newer acts lower down the bill ended up giving the best performances. One can’t help wondering if the festival might have worked better for those attending the whole weekend if the acts had been mixed up a little more rather than seperate blues, rock and prog days. But on the other hand that format may have sold more individual day tickets. Indeed, I was told that the Thursday night, which was very well attended, actually sold out with many people coming to hear the tribute acts, and that subsides the rest of the festival.

And finally, the beer! The festival began life as a beer festival, and was called the RockandBeerFest until a few years back. But real ale is still a major part of what the whole thing is about, and an awful lot of beer was drunk over the course of the weekend.