One week until party time!
Hop Harvest Festival, Saturday 18th September - tickets sold out but keep checking the booking page in case we get any returns
Hop Harvest TEA Party, Sunday 19th September - Buy tickets
In a week's time we will be opening the gates for the start of a weekend of partying! Next Saturday sees the return of the Hop Harvest Festival after a 'fallow' year and then we are spreading out the fun with a second day of more live music and family fun with our Hop Harvest TEA Party on the Sunday. If we're excited, that appears to be matched by the bands who are getting in touch with some video messages showing that they are getting in the mood too!
Opening the Party is a favourite from the Hogs Back Tap, The TR5s! They've got some classic rock'n'roll which will set the party swinging from the off!
We can't wait to welcome Pattern Pusher to the Hop Harvest Festival. They are a really exciting and energetic retro-pop group who have been performing all over this summer including at Boardmasters and Beautiful Days Festival. They've put a lot of time and thought into answering all of our questions - what a nice bunch of lads (+ Dave the cat)!
We're not entirely sure where Tom has been but he appears to bringing CoCo and the Butterfields across the ocean blue to get to the Festival. Can't wait for their British Indie-Folk sound to take us into the evening time at the party.
The Festival comes to a big finish with the wonderful music of Fleetwood Mac as performed by their top cover band Fleetwood Bac! I don't know about you but I can't wait to see the scenes when The Chain starts.... We're hoping to catch up with the band next week.
The fun doesn't stop there though as we have even more live music on the Sunday at the TEA Party, The Jim Hammond Quartet opens up with some boogie-woogie and blues before top local band Peach and the Prairie Dogs brings some Americana classics to the main stage. Next up, we have the brilliant Bloomfield Avenue who's lead Guitarist and vocalist Ben Francis has spent the time filling us in on their sound with a little Q&A:
How long have you been performing as Bloomfield Avenue?:
I formed Bloomfield Avenue with Joseph Prouse, our drummer, all the way back in June of 2008
How would you best describe your musical style as a band?:
We play every musical style and have played both traditional music (ceilidh and even traditional Jewish wedding songs), to all out rock, funk, soul, R & B and soul, garage, disco, jazz, swing and pop. There’s literally nothing we haven’t done (yet!)
Who are your main musical inspirations?
We love all music. Prince, Jamiroquai, Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton (Joes’ favourite) - there are too many to name
What have you been up to mostly as a band over the past year?
Over the past year we created as many videos on YouTube and social media platforms as we could (visit our pages to see them), but over the last few months of gigging we have been playing for all the lovely couples who have managed to get married finally!
Favourite festival performance?
Favourite Festival would be ShyneFest in Walton-on-Thames as it was a packed crowd who danced and sang with us all night.
Most unusual musical performance as a band?
I guess the Ceilidh might take that one as we’d not done it before, but it certainly was a lot of fun.
Speaking as a brewery now, what is your tipple of choice?
We’re all very fond of an IPA on the whole but Dave likes a gin too.
And then closing the Party weekend, we have the remarkable Morganway. We caught up with them a few weeks back but if you missed the Q&A, why not take a read of it now?
We can't wait to see you there!