Festival season is a funny old beast.
Sure, it sounds like the ultimate First World Problem; but, if you’re the type who enjoys spending their summers gallivanting their way from one festival to the next, then you’ll know how easy it is to burn out by the time Autumn rolls around.
One minute, you’re at Live At Leeds, ready to take on the world with nothing more than a lukewarm pint and a list of bands you absolutely cannot miss; the next, you’re at Reading Festival at 3 o’clock in the morning, staggering around a mud-ridden campsite in the hope that somebody, somewhere, might remember where you pitched your tent.
Some festivals, though, are worth making the effort for.
Some of them, in fact, are more than just festivals. Instead, they’re escapes. They’re places you can go to and just forget about life for a weekend; where you can catch up with old friends, and make new ones, and all while enjoying a line-up of unwaveringly beautiful music.
Barn On The Farm, dear reader, is one of those places. It doesn’t even seem fair to call it a festival; for, at this point, it’s become so much more than that.
It’s the kind of place where you’ll be talking to a stranger and have one of those blissful ‘Wait?! You like that band too?!’ moments that all music lovers dream about. It’s a place where artists aren’t placed on a pedestal; they’re just treated like one of the family. After all, where else would you get the biggest breakthrough pop star of the year pop up in your campsite at midnight, treat you to an impromptu performance of Don’t Look Back In Anger, and dedicate the entire thing to ‘ma dad, Noel Gallagher‘?
Oh, and as far as the music goes?
Frankly, we think that the festival’s level of curation is unparalleled. Over the last ten years, it’s managed to consistently book some of the biggest names in music just before they break into the mainstream. James Bay? Check. Ed Sheeran? Check. Ben Howard, George Ezra, and Catfish and The Bottlemen? Check, check, and check.
Some of them even come back for more. This year’s line-up was, in our eyes, the strongest yet: after all, any festival that’s got Dermot Kennedy, Maggie Rogers, APRE, Plested, and Lewis Capaldi at the top of its poster is going to be one that we’re dying to head to. So, when we learned that there was to be an Unannounced Special Guest on the Sunday evening, we were pretty curious to see who the heck it was going to be. The answer? George bloody Ezra. Oh, and that secret, unannounced headliner for the festival’s gloriously intimate Friday night? A little band called The Vaccines.
That, in our eyes, is what makes Barn On The Farm Festival so special.
It’s not the amazing line-up, it’s not the stunning location, and it’s not the fact that there’s an ostrich guarding the gates. It’s the fact that, as soon as you get there, you feel like you’re part of a family. Artists don’t just happen to come back; they’re there because they want to be, and the ones who haven’t been booked for the next year tend to just come along anyway. Indeed, it’s not uncommon for first-time attendees to buy their tickets for next year before they’ve even unpacked; even this humble reviewer has made friends that they’re already looking forward to seeing at next year’s bash.
That, dear reader, is why Barn On The Farm is more than just a music festival. It’s not just a place where you might just find your favourite new band; it’s a place where you might just meet some of your favourite people.