Live Review

Hop Farm – Hop Farm, Kent

• 2nd Jul 2012

In a summer that has been decidedly British, a time of economic doom and gloom and a forced enthusiasm for the 2012 Olympics, Hop Farm provided a respite from it all.

Friday bought with it sunshine and super excited punters, glad for the day off work, and amongst them, mostly middle aged men excited for Mr Peter Gabriel and his multi-piece orchestra. And he did not disappoint. Phenomenal, even if he did play too many new songs for the audience, but I guess you can’t blame him with a captive market, the draw backs? Well there were none. Earlier in the day, Ray Davies delighted the eardrums of onlookers, and although drawn between wanting to stay and ride out the immensity of his set, after hearing ‘All Day and All of The Night’, we went to watch the Stranglers, also getting old, smash out their 1988 cover version of it too! This was turning out to be exceptional, a real highlight of my musical career! The Futureheads, as per normal bought a ray of a cappella, northern sunshine to the sunny field of Kent.

Saturday morning came, after an evening of campsite acoustics, and the busking spots around the festival site attracting many ears (someone had a sense of humour – they were lettered and the one outside the men’s loos was ‘P’). The sun was out and there was a vibe about the Farm that was lovely, now either it’s a sign that I’m growing old and can’t hack it like I used to but the serenity was inviting and everyone was embracing it. The number of young kids there with drunk parents was huge, but aside from their bad parenting habits, it wasn’t really a problem, no crying/screaming/changing nappies so that suited me.
Main stage openers Treetop Flyers were exactly what you needed from a 2nd day opener, but the main surprise and attraction of the weekend were Bellowhead, a Jools Holland favourite, who absolutely stormed their set, an 11-piece band completely rocking out, that had the crowd going more than Muse would have. A hard act to follow, luckily for the festival virgin that came next, Sir Bruce Forsyth, he pulled in a big crowd. Admittedly it was more a ratio of 3:1 of people who wanted to see him and people who thought he shouldn’t have been invited, but he melted even the coldest of hearts with his big band performance. He had the crowd eating out of his hand after a tap dance (from sitting down), getting people out of the audience to dance with him and finally bringing on his granddaughter for a duet of Charlie Chaplin’ s Smile before she sung a solo herself. Joan Armatrading proved that she still had a voice on her, and Slow Club hushed the entire tent, and the rest of the afternoon went by without a hitch. After a visit to festival organiser Mr Power’s own stage (The Powers Bar stage – more or less a tin can with power), and seeing the beautiful Yngve and the Innocent, sampled a few cocktails, we were blown out the water (field?) by Randy Crawford and the Joe Sample Trio. A real testament to what those middle aged men keep banging on about, how musical talent was so much better and varied in their day. Well, Patti Smith sure put paid to that too. Damien Rice took to the stage next, and considering his stage set up (him+guitar) he really owned the space, broke hearts and filled the holes with delectable tunes, I guess he could do with getting laid to make it slightly less morose, but it was incredible. However, never ones to shy away from the chance of a good show, Maximo Park picked up the tempo and absolutely destroyed, in the good sense of the word, the Big Tent, playing all the hits, dancing like loons, and sampling a few new songs for the crowd to hear, a truly epic performance. Then came what was the most promising act of the day, Bob Dylan, the one and only on the main stage. After seeing signs up everywhere about no photography of the old man, it was not surprising that he had a reputation for being a bit of a prima donna, and having had the front two cameras removed from the stage, the only view the audience could get of him was the distance view from the sound desk. That aside, you would have thought that the sound and the presence of such a legend should have made up for it, alas, he is prime example of legends that should call it a day. If you’re too old to have your picture taken, and your voice is going, you should quit while you are ahead mate.

Sunday, and the heavens opened. Knowing we were in for a rocky day after a slightly disappointing end of the day the night before, we headed straight for Taj Mahal, who wowed the crowd with their blues sound and upbeat passion. We stuck about for Tallest Man On Earth, who I must admit, was not as tall as I imagined, but as beautiful in both looks and sound as I remembered, folk and inventive and a real local natives/stornaway/mumford vibe. But cooler. Next, the band that I can never remember what they sing as I always get it mixed up with Keane and Travis…Athlete. They were good, started and ended with a banger, but seemed to not fill the space they had, not knocking them on the main stage, but it may have been better for their sound and ambiance being in a tent. After a torrential downpour and some truly vegan lunch, it was time for the Psychadellic Furs, who really actually prove my ‘idiot popstars wear sunglasses’ completely and utterly wrong. A band that are past their sell-by date and probably look about 40 years younger behind the shades, yet still know how to put on a good show, and get the crowd dancing. Next we went back to Mr Powers’ trailor and watched Indigo Earth, unfortunately due to the weather running half an hour late, mucking up all sorts of plans we had to catch Gruff Rhys and some others. They were great, for a small unsigned band they had some real presence, the female harmonies were spine-tinglingly beautiful and the songs were well written, but it did seem to be a bit of a ‘folk’s cool, let’s go down that route’ set-up, with a few songs sounding a bit Folk-by-numbers. The Levellers took to the main stage, and in the momentary blue sky they played ‘Beautiful Day’ and then continued to really take over the proceedings with the addition of a digeridoo and a serious level of funk…with banjos. Epic. The final act of the evening was Richard Ashcroft, another of my heros that I much prefer to see with his old band, he did ok, rambled a bit but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when he smashed out ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ with the crowd yelling every word.

All in all, a festival with one of the best vibes around, chilled out, aiming to please and clean, a respectable festival you could drag your mum and dad too, but also catch a few ‘80s footballer fancy dress’ stag dos at too. The big names of festivals are back, but Hop Farm have released next year’s tickets already, to get your weekend passes for £125 and find out more, visit [link]