Despite originating from mutual frustration and anger, last term’s Occupation was largely defined by the good feeling amongst its participants. It is warmth that continues to be felt: the atmosphere at the Cambridge Defend Education gig on Friday night was amicable and homely. The context of the show did not need to be overstated: small gestures of continuing defiance (activist pamphlets, wrist stamps proclaiming “BOLLOCKS!”) were enough to generate an implicit political charge.  

This was the band’s first performance as a seven-piece for months, with members now strewn across several different countries. No sentimentalities to mark the occasion though - in a nod to the Occupation, frontman Jacob Wills impishly asked whether anyone “wanted to take over the door shift”, and the band launched into their set.  

The Army displayed impressive command of dynamics and texture throughout the gig. Of course, the fast (faster…..faster….) oompa gypsy folk moments got the expected reaction from the crowd. But for me, the racy outros were overshadowed by the quieter moments where the band’s musicality could shine through. Third number ‘Cain and Abel’ saw Wills produce virtuoso ricochet from his fiddle which was all the more exhilarating because the accompanying snare drum battery was delayed. Tom Barber’s shredding got a little lost in the mix sometimes, but the soundman otherwise did a good job of balancing the seven-piece in a small venue. 

When they want to be, the band are as ragged as their name suggests, vaudeville keys and self-deprecating humour aplenty (“I wrote this when I was stuck for 17 hours in Wolverhampton… I thought going to the People and Planet Forum might be interesting”). However, they also exude a professionalism which comes from experience on the club circuit – moving slickly from song to song and checking with the venue that they had time to end their set. The blend of cool-headedness and impassioned spontaneity was typified in singer Decca and bassist Dom, both ostensibly unruffled but each occasionally making the face that suggests ’this is going really well…'

The defining feature of the night however, was the perfect marriage of band,venue and crowd. The coming together of town and gown is necessary and rare. At the Portland Arms, I’m sure I saw some townspeople raise their hands aloft with the students and - in the manner of the Occupation - ‘temperature check’ their justified approval for Ragged Army.