31/6/2007 East Barnet Festival (Sunday)

Subject	East Barnet Festival (Sunday)
PostedDate	6/30/2007
	The Sunday of the East Barnet Festival was set to be a more relaxing day from my point of view. Once again, it was raining when I woke up - and once again I didn't make it down there early enough to see all the bands. To be honest, most of them didn't seem my sort of thing and after the stress of the previous day I just wanted to relax and take my time - and also enjoy a few drinks as I couldn't do that the previous day.  I arrived as Viagra Falls were playing - excellent musicians, but a bit too laid back for my taste. I headed for the beer tent. I couldn't sample it's delights on the Saturday, although I did find some free Fosters in the band tent - so I was looking forward to partaking of some alcoholic refreshments of the Sunday. I was more than a little disappointed to find that all they had on offer was Pimms or small plastic bottles of Fosters at £3 each - West End rip-off prices!  They were doing an 'offer' of two bottles for a fiver, but that was still effectively £5 for a pint of Fosters! I decided I'd rather go without...  Then the band played 'Mustang Sally' - that was the final straw and I headed off to the village to see if there was an off licence open. Fortunately I found one straight away and a few minutes later I was back in Oakhill Park clutching a four-pack of K cider - big 500ml tins of 8.4% for only a quid each - bargain! With the booze situation sorted I found I nice spot on the hill as the band finally started to liven up - ending their set with 'Johnny B Goode'. Even at this distance the sound was surprisingly loud, and also a pretty good mix. Things were looking up, and even the weather was improving. Well a bit anyway.  Next on were Hokum. Pretty much a bog standard middle aged middle of the road blues band, but good musicians as these sort of bands generally are. The lead guitarist was rather good, and actually had some stage presence - virtually unheard of with this type of band. I wandered down nearer the stage when Hokum finished and met up with some friends - who had also been patronising the off licence instead of the overpriced and under stocked beer tent.  Well known local blues/rock outfit Texas Flyers closed the show - probably the best band of the day, and they certainly they had the best guitarist. Most their material was pretty familiar - at least three songs in their set were also played by yesterday's show closers . I've got to hand it to their frontman Big Steve though - he really works hard to get the crowd going, although like the bands yesterday he didn't have much of an audience to work with due to the miserable weather. I thought I'd probably end up going home afterwards, but ended up in the pub with friends instead and didn't leave til around midnight - an agreeable end to the day.