Cropredy seems like a festival from another world. One that the rest of this world thought had died long ago. Even within the insular folk scene Cropredy is something of an anachronism: most of the acts playing over the three days have been around in one form or another for a couple of decades or more; the average age of the performers must be pushing 50 while the punters, who all seem to come from Birmingham, can’t be far behind. But despite all this Cropredy - thirty years old itself, remember - still pulls in 20,000 fans every year. And it’s still a great festival. Often despite the music.

Cropredy is, of course, Fairport Convention’s baby and so many of the acts performing are friends of the band, if not assorted ex-Fairport members themselves, like The Albion Band, whose more traditional take on the folk blueprint makes their set one of the highlights of the weekend. The best reception of the weekend though, is reserved for Bob Fox, a roly-poly north-eastern singer/songwriter who recently supported Fairport on tour and whose gently rough-hewn approach makes him out as a latterday Jimmy Nail at times. In fact he even covers Nail’s ‘A Big River’ and promptly finds himself swamped by autograph hunters at the Woodworm music stall.

Elsewhere there is precious little to cheer. The Incredible String Band have reformed with their original line-up for the first time in nearly 30 years and they’re either pissed or senile. Robin Williamson has clearly lost the ability to sing in tune and the whole sorry debacle seems like an untidy postscript to a band who could genuinely be described as legends. It’s a mere ten years since All About Eve last played a full show, so they’ve got even less of an excuse than the Stringies for their poor showing. They play all the old hits, like ‘Wild Hearted Woman’ and ‘Flowers in Her Hair’, but Julianne Regan too seems to have lost her old vocal range and long before their hour and a half set is over they’ve become just another droning hippy dirge.

Surely Robert Plant wouldn’t let us down, though? He’s here this year with Priory of Brion, a folk-rock band with little in common with his old folk-rock band, Led Zeppelin. Priory of Brion sound rather more like Marillion gone acoustic. Plant, once the greatest living rock god on the planet, sits on a stool and helps to ruin classic songs like ‘No Regrets’, although the interpretation of the original version of ‘Hey Joe’ offers some consolation. Not enough, sadly.

And so, after three days of folk bands for whom the past quarter of a century may as well not have existed, plus a set of Hendrix and ZZ Top-style rocking from the at least lively Hamsters, it’s left to Fairport themselves to once again save the day. Three hours is still pushing it a bit and plenty of the set is pure self-indulgence but these guys near enough invented folk-rock back in the 60s and can still kick it. They could also out-drink almost any other band on the planet. All the usual guests turn up for the party, the biggest cheer of the night going to the seriously ill and wheelchair-bound Dave Swarbrick, and, as ever, they finish with a mass singalong version of ‘Meet on the Ledge’.

And it’s Dave Swarbrick who provides the festival’s most poignant moment. He spends much of Saturday in the music tent cheerfully signing copies of his own obituary, mistakenly printed in the Telegraph last year when the violinist was at his lowest ebb health-wise. Like Cropredy itself, the world obviously thought him dead before his time. Same again next year, then.

Ian Chesterton