BREDY FARM
Idyllic location – and great weather too
We decided to ignore the forecast for torrential rain and flash floods over the bank holiday weekend and headed off to the Dorset coast for an amazing micro-music-festival weekend at Bredy Farm.
This small festival is set on an amazing campsite in a picturesque river valley near Burton Bradstock. They have live music and DJ events most weekends, usually held in the Rattleshack, a converted cowshed with an amazing island bar and outdoor swimming pool. But three weekends a year, in May, July and August, they throw much larger parties. I say larger, but they are nowhere near the scale of most festivals we go to, drawing crowds of less than 1000.
The festival has one stage and an incredibly relaxed vibe. There are few rules other than “don’t be a dick”, and a lovely crowd of incredibly friendly people, most of whom are starting to look familiar as we return here each year.
This is our third year at the August event, and it turned out to be a good shout.
Somehow, we managed to avoid the downpours hitting Shambala, Creamfields, Reading and Leeds, with only a few minutes of relatively light rain hitting two performances over the entire three-day event. The bigger downpours did happen, but at 3am, when we were tucked up in bed.
We bought tickets only a few weeks ago, for around £100 for the entire weekend, which also included camping, so it was incredibly good value. However, we headed up a day early to take advantage of the good weather, which meant purchasing an additional ticket for the main campsite nestled in the valley. It worked out a little more expensive that way, but was worth it!
There are two fields here set aside for all-year or summer camping: the Orchard and the Mead. They have all the facilities you’d expect, including good showers, loos and washing-up facilities. Both are in a beautiful setting, in fields adjacent to the River Bride and surrounded by trees, old farm buildings and equipment, including the wheel from the old water mill.
The main advantage of booking the main campsite was being closer to the farm, Rattleshack and restaurant. It also meant we could park our car right next to the tent and avoid the haul up the hill to the field set up for the festival.
We discovered that being down in the valley also allowed us to avoid the 40mph+ winds whipping in from the west over the weekend, so it turned out to be a great shout!
THE FESTIVAL
Bad Actors are worth a mention. We last saw them at Tramlines Fringe Festival a few weeks ago, where they performed at Hagglers Corner. Indeed, it was them who prompted us to buy tickets for this event when we saw them on the line-up.
They put on a great show despite a light shower of rain, which thankfully stopped halfway through their funk-rock set.
Silveroller were an interesting retro-rock band, with a sound that would have fitted neatly into the seventies, and band members who equally resembled the Swedish porn stars of the same era!
DeWolff were absolutely awesome, a psychedelic blues-rock band from Limburg who absolutely nailed it. I loved every tune they performed.
But my personal favourite was Holy Youth Movement, who headlined on Sunday night and put on a great performance. How these guys aren’t bigger is beyond me. Their stage presence is electric and their sound just makes you want to dance.
Mind you, it was late, I was up for dancing, and we’d consumed a fair amount of festival lubricant by then!
THE PARLOUR RESTAURANT
One of the many things that sets this place apart from other festivals is the on-site permanent restaurant, the Parlour, an Italian-themed eatery which delivers great-quality food in a rustic setting in the middle of the farm.
The meat is all farmed and sourced locally, and the dishes are incredible quality. We skipped breakfast, so didn’t feel too bad ordering starters, we rolled back to the tent, with incredibly full bellies.
A QUIET DAY WITH ROB AND LAUREN
It was at the Parlour that we got talking to Rob and Lauren (pronounced Bouquet – IYKYK), a lovely couple. It didn’t take long to realise we had a lot in common, including, obviously, a love of festivals, but also a similar (wicked) sense of humour and complicated life backstories.
We ended up spending much of the afternoon together, with way more lubrication than was needed. This included Emma discovering the “Mega” cocktails, which involved seven shots…
I’m not saying how many shots she consumed during the day… (but it wasn’t seven).
THE RATTLESHACK
After the festival music stopped, we spent most nights at the Rattleshack, where resident and guest DJs stick on sounds that keep everyone on their feet until the early hours.
The pool ends up full of people, beer in hand, dancing to the music and having a good time.
We spent Saturday and Sunday nights here – far too late!
INCREDIBLY FRIENDLY PEOPLE
As ever, we bumped into many of the same faces we’ve seen over the past few years. People tend to return here, and why not!
Chivs and about 15 of his family and friends from Bristol were camped in the pitch alongside us. Boy, did they like to party! Their alarm clock for stopping the party was sunrise. Then they were up a few hours later to resume the festivities!
On the other side of us was Kaisa, down here for the weekend with friends from Bournemouth. They had a Boomtown 2022 parking sticker on their motorhome, so we discovered they’d been to the same one Emma and I attended. Awesome festival! .
They’re also off to MuckyWeekender in two weeks – we may end up joining them.
We spent an hour talking with Mark and Sue, who were also in a motorhome with their dog, primarily here for the camping but also taking advantage of the festival weekend.
We got chatting (and dancing) with Nick, Mush and Jane, who I recognised from last year. We seemed to be nearby whenever the music got infectious, and somehow always ended up sharing the same dancing space. God knows what we talked about, but there are plenty of blurred pictures on the phone of us all together!
Oh, and Diane was here again. We met her last year. She’s mad as a box of frogs, with a warm heart and a love of music and fun.
This year she came with her new TentBox and was camping in the main field. We spent quite a bit of time catching up between performances.
THE GET OUT
The weather was great again for the get-out on Monday, so we decided to have a lie-in (needed after last night) and then pop down to West Bay for a couple of hours before heading home.
A nice way to round off the weekend.
This really is a great little festival, with a line-up that somehow just works, and bar prices that are kind to the pocket – well, unless you’re ordering Mega cocktails and your name is Emma!
Until next time!