More about: barn on the farm

Gloucester opened its farmyard doors for the hotly anticipated Barn on the Farm festival; a folksy, acoustically soundtracked weekend with the charm of a chipped smile and the promise of a sunny weather report. Renowned for championing the best emerging artists – Ed Sheeran and Lewis Capaldi found their sea legs on the Barn stage’s planks – the festival is a rite of passage for those who tread the boards.

The first of the festival headliners are the Aussie band Gang of Youths on the Friday night, and they dance and sing like a motorbike gang who’ve just found their wings. Softer than they seem, violinist Tom Hobden waxes lyrical while frontman David Le’aupepe puts on a balletic performance, cutting a Rorschach silhouette as he sings with Jarvis Cocker-esque honesty. They hark in the start of the weekend with a holler.

Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff brings the energy to a fever-pitch, and people sit and sway on shoulders like they’re trying to stack the Barn to the rafters. Holly Humberstone keeps the fire going on the Sunday night with ballads that streak across the festival fields like arrows on the wind.

The festival keeps its audience on its toes with surprise acts that make people guess until the floodlights come up. FIZZ – patchwork indie supergroup and afternoon crowd-pleasers – use the Main Stage to test a slew of unreleased material. While they start with the anthemic ‘High in Brighton’, they try out more soulful tracks like to tears and applause.

Sam Ryder – who’s advertised as ‘Cam Aspen’, an anagram for ‘Space Man’ on the track listing – moves far past his Eurovision roots into a gospel performance in a technicolour dreamcoat.

The Barn Band – a mainstay tradition of the folk festival – brings together the musicians who’ve been playing the festival and turns them into a one-time, one-off band for the ages. Together Sigrid, Billie Marten, Flyte, Ber, and Charlie Oriain wrap the audience around their fingers like twine.

Bilk take to the Main Stage on Friday with their classic brand of hedonistic Britpop swagger for an all-killer, no filler set. A collage of patchwork tattoos and floppy hair, songs like ‘Daydreamer’ and ‘Hummus and Pitta’ (“this is a song about getting drunk!”) are anthems for young men behaving badly in the best way possible. Their set has the keen sense of being the piss-up pre-drinks before the party of the ages, and with a new tune coming out soon, Bilk are turning the summer into something boozy, boyish, and entirely theirs.

Nieve Ella takes to the Outdoor Stage like a rockabilly in a tulle skirt; she’s an iGeneration pop star waiting to happen. Caity Baser brings the energy to ease even the most haunting hangover, while the Hitchcock blonde Dylan rollicks with all the free-wheeling fun of a rolling stone. These acts are nothing if not sincere.

Barn on the Farm is a weekend of new music, but it feels like more than the mere sum of its parts. There’s something electric in the air – something charged with possibility – and it’s this ineffable feeling that makes Barn a pilgrimage for those in the know. Flower children and fangirls alike find solace and sunshine just within the farm’s wooden doors, and come back again and again for a fistful of its bohemian freedom. 

See the view from the pit, captured by Sophie Vaughan:

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More about: barn on the farm