The Eden Sessions are back. Hurrah! It really feels like festival season is up and running once the biomes glow behind the latest big names, and antipodean titans Crowded House were an inspired choice for this year’s sold-out launch act.

A friend texted me asking for tips on her first Eden Sessions experience.

Top tip 1: Arrive early to avoid being stuck in a queue, and allow good time for getting down to the auditorium from the top car parks.

On the night, Friend sent me a message: “Got a great spot near the front. See you soon.” We hadn’t even left the house at that point.

Somewhere near the Eden entrance, we joined the back of a long, slow-moving queue, watching the cars in front do three-point turns and wondering if there was an accident (and if not, why they’d come this way if not to attend the concert).

Top tip 2: Make sure you have enough petrol. Ours had looked like enough to get us to St Austell and back - in normal traffic conditions. The prospect of running out of fuel in the middle of a field looked increasingly likely as the figure dropped with alarming speed (in contrast to our actual velocity, which was more like that of a sleepy snail).

Top tip 3: Do your homework. I was thrilled about Crowded House coming to Eden, recalling the halcyon days when I was a happy-go-lucky 20-something, a boho student on a year out in France, long before adult responsibilities crushed all my capacity for joyful spontaneity.

However, I realised as I approached Eden that, while Woodface is one of my Desert Island Discs – the whole album, perfection in CD form – that was about as much as I knew of their oeuvre.

I had become one of those concert-goers I despise: the person who claims to be a “fan” based on one huge hit, one stellar album, casually ignoring a lifetime’s creative output before and since.

Last month, the Other Half and I took Daughter and our respective mothers to see Steeleye Span in Falmouth. They played two barnstorming halves of folk-rock renditions of myth and legend, sorcery and blood-letting. There was barely a song OH and I didn’t know, and the handful that were new to us, we lapped up on the night and sought out online later.

Our mothers, meanwhile, waited patiently for All Around My Hat, which was predictably reserved for somewhere near the end.

So I apologise to Neil Finn and co, who are clearly seasoned, prolific and talented musicians. I was far from alone; 80 per cent of the audience were similarly ignorant. You could tell by the way the atmosphere lifted with the opening chords of hits like Fall At Your Feet, Don’t Dream It’s Over and Weather With You.

I spotted a couple of friends singing along to everything. “This was our road trip soundtrack to Australia,” they beamed, admitting they were the only ones who appeared to know anything until four tracks in. 

That said, the guys were big enough to lean into it, jovially mocking the “salt and pepper” nature of the audience – presumably a reference to the prevailing age. They made the most of the songs we all knew, putting us through our paces with wonderfully harmonious singalongs led by Finn, whose voice has barely aged in the intervening decades.

Not unreasonably, they reminded us gently from time to time that they have written other songs – like those on the latest album, Gravity Stairs, including singles Oh Hi and Teenage Summer.

They were also magnificent in responding to the crowd. Finn’s revelation that he had not only been on the zipwire but also braved a swim in Carlyon Bay that morning – I didn’t quite catch his verdict but it sounded like “pollock cold” – went down well.

Then he called the performance to a halt to enquire about the “Oggy oggy oggy!” malarkey that had taken off in the crowd. “Sorry, what was that? Aussie Aussie Aussie?” prompted a full-on demo resulting in a collective bonhomie that would surely see the band inducted as honorary Cousin Jacks, regardless of their Cornish connections.

The atmosphere was misty-eyed at times, with plenty of loved-up couples reliving their youth (there was even a proposal). Weather With You came just before the encore, and I was surprised to find myself beaming from ear to ear, suddenly light of heart. There it was, that spontaneous joy, still there after all.

With that, it was time to make the long journey back up to the Mango field and hope the car didn’t conk out on us.

Top tip 4: Look out for the pasties at the end. I didn’t, and I was as ravenous as my fuel-poor car by the time I made it home at 12.30am. Next time, I’ll be taking my own advice.