2010 East Barnet Festival - Part 1.

Subject	East Barnet Festival (Part 1)
PostedDate	7/3/2010
	The East Barnet Festival is something I look forward to every year - loads of bands, a beer tent with real ales and pub prices, reasonably priced food, nice atmosphere, it's FREE - and it's only a few minutes walk from home.  OK, so the bands might be a little tame compared to what I normally go and see, but that can be a refreshing change and there are usually one or two surprises.  It's more of a local family orientated event - that's OK 'cos some of my friends have kids and they can take them along too, and the event being free means it doesn't cost anything to take them. It's always a friendly relaxed atmosphere, and I've never seen or heard of any real trouble over the years I've been going. The music bill is quite varied, and short of extreme metal nearly everyone will find at least some acts to their taste. Like any festival, if you aren't keen on the band currently playing you can wander off to look at something else, chat to your friends, go to the nearly pub, or stock up at the off licence if the beer tent doesn't tempt you - you are free to bring your own food and drink if you like. If only all festivals were like that! Unfortunately I didn't get back from the West End (see previous blog) until about four in the morning, so by the time I'd woken up, had breakfast and sorted myself out and walked down to Oakhill Park I'd missed the first few bands on Saturday. Fortunately, the weather was really good for the second year running.  Regular festival performer McGoozer was doing his solo acoustic thing when I arrived, then Digress (another regular act here) funked things up a bit while I found my friends scattered here and there. The next band was Braezen - their set of rock/soul/blues covers was more my sort of thing. I believe they can be seen playing in one or two Barnet pubs. Next up was local festival regulars Daddy Those Men Scare Me. This lot are thought to be Barnet's oldest surviving band. Not meaning they personally are really old - just that they've been going longer than anyone else! This bunch of folk/punk/hippies are certainly unique. It's a shame they can't play their best known (and most infamous) song 'Teenagers' due to it's lyrical content and this being a 'family' event!  The next act was billed as simply 'Bob and Joan', which puzzled my friends and myself. This turned out to be an acoustic duo performing Bob Dylan and Joan Baez covers. They seemed a bit out of place, but seeing as how the final band had so much gear to set up while they playing I can see how them being in that spot on the bill made sense... The headline band on the Saturday night was something really different to what people normally expect at this event. Almost no one at the festival had the faintest idea who The Eden House were, but friends of mine travelled from Swiss Cottage and even south London just to see this one band. It became apparent early on that quite a few of the band's harcore fans had turned up to see the band (from as far as Coventry) and noticably more people appeared to be here to see this one band than any other today. The Eden House are unlike any other band I've ever seen at the East Barnet Festival and Goths had tavelled from far and wide to see them. This is a serious band with very strong Goth credentials, but I don't think most of the festival regulars had any idea what to make of them. It's not that they didn't like them - they just didn't get it.. Not surprising really, as most festival regulars will always have a problem with any band that doesn't play songs they haven't heard a million times before. However, The Eden House really managed to create an atmosphere in Oakhill Park. Being a Goth band, it was a bit weird seeing them in broad daylight - if it was dark then the smoke machine and lightshow would have created far more of the ambience that you would expect from a band like this. Even as it was, I felt this final act of the day really brought something a bit special to this Saturday evening in the park. It seemed a bit strange leaving a festival while it was still light, but that was resolved to going to the nearby Prince of Wales on the way home and staying in there until it was dark.  A nice way to round off a good day out.