A weekend of amazing music, food and fun - The East Barnet Festival 2024

 What were you doing last weekend? I can tell you what I was doing (when I wasn't watching England). I was at the East Barnet Festival. If you've never heard of it, it's the biggest community festival in the London Borough of Barnet. For the last few years, I've been involved with the festival and helped get the line up together, with Al Pascal of Al Pascal music school and local musician Dave Towler. We spent six months listening to submissions and trying to sort out three days of interesting and different music. I think we did a pretty good job. There were some amazing performances. My picks of the day were The Alan Warner Band, Brook Law, Subverse and Visions of Order. Alan is the band leader of 60's icons The Foundations, this is his other band, where he plays the covers he loves. Brook Law is a truly awesome female singer. If there is any justice in the world, she will become a massive star. Maddie from Subverse is a brilliant vocalist, The show was opened by Visions of Order who did an great selection of their self penned ballads. 

It was not just the bands. On Sunday there was an amazing classic car show, if you are a petrol head and you like nice motors. There was an amazing selection of cars, as you can see from the picture and a huge amount of interest in them. Cars have become a bit of a dirty word in political circles, every single change that has been made in the transport policy in the last 20 years, has been designed to get these sort of motors off the road.  I happen to think many classic cars are things of great beauty and long may we have such car shows!

There was also a funfair. I am sorry to say that I am past the stage in my life where I enjoy such rides, but for families having a fun fair in the park is a wonderful thing and many parents were throughly enjoying the day. 

There were also some amazing food stands. I very much enjoyed the Pastel De Nata (my fave pudding) from the Portuguese stall. I also had a Moroccan beef wrap from the Moroccan stall. The owner was a lovely bloke. He'd watched the False Dots play and gave me a free wrap as he enjoyed us so much!

I've been reluctant to put us on the bill since I got involved with the festival. I didn't get involved to promote my own music, but several people suggested it was time The False Dots made an appearance. We've been rather active recently and when we played at the Bull Arts Centre in April, many people said we should do it, so they could bring the whole family to see us for free. So at 5pm, we found ourselves onstage. The area is huge, there were probably 2,000 people watching us. It was glorious weather and everyone was in a wonderful mood. I have never really thought the False Dots were an open air band. I'd seen us as 10pm in a small, smoky club sort of band. Since Tom Hammond joined the band on Trumpet, we've really widened and broadened our sound and within the first couple of minutes of us playing, I realised that we've changed and we are very festival friendly band these days. People got up and started bopping and it seemed everyone was videoing us. Here is one of the highlights of the show, our last single, We all Love a Party!

It seemed that the whole of East Barnet loved a party. When we came off, dozens of people came up to say how much they enjoyed the set. We are playing againg this coming Saturday at the 50th Annual Jesterfest Festival in Fortune Green, West Hampstead at 5pm. It is completely free. Rather annoyingly, it clashes with England, but given that the first half of every England game has been dire so far, why not come along and then adjourn to the pub for the good bit. 

Like many local businesses, my business (Mill Hill Music Complex) sponsors the festival. It costs £55,000 to stage such an event, and a huge amount of planning. This year, due to the escalating costs of insurance, there is a small funding gap. If you came along and you enjoyed it, please help plug this. Even a £3 donation makes a difference. When the False Dots learned of the shortfall, we waived our agreed appearance fee (we are professional musicians and this is how we pay the bills). The bigger picture is that we need festivals and we need to do our bit. All I got was a couple of cans of Fosters and a lovely Moroccan Beef Wrap, but I had a glorious day and you'd pay £100 to see such great music at some festivals, so I don't feel too bad. 

A lot of people put a lot of time into making East Barnet Festival happen. These amazing volunteers don't get paid. If you enjoyed the Festival and want to see it happen next year, please help out