Next in our series of blogs, in which festival goers share their fondest memories of Farmer Phil’s Festival, it’s the turn of Brian Stone. Brian will be opening the Russshuntel second stage on Friday 12 August, and we can’t wait to see what he’s got in store for us! Here’s Brian’s favourite Farmer Phil’s…
You’ve been watching the best bands and musicians on the festival scene all day. You’re knackered from dancing yourself silly to the likes of New Groove Formation. So what do you do? You sit around a fire all night chatting, drinking, making the best cheese toasties the world knows at that very moment and singing the songs you were enjoying earlier. People drift in and out of the circle round the fire as the skies clear and the temperature drops, while shooting stars streak overhead, some seeming to split the sky in two.
Everyone’s defying the August frost, cosy in the glow of the flames and the banter and silly songs get more and more rowdy. A visit from security to ask nicely if we could keep it down suggests we need to consider our neighbours. One then pops a head out of a window “We’re neighbours and we quite like listening.” Priceless!
Then disaster strikes. Cruelly and with no warning, we run out of rum! Noooo!!!! All that goes through my mind at this point is the scene in Pirates of the Caribbean where our hero and heroine are marooned on a desert island with a huge stash of pirated rum. She burns the lot to make a distress beacon, and I can’t get Captain Jack’s line “Why Is All The Rum Gone?” out of my head.
We watch the sun rise and head off to bed but the memories linger and a while later I write the song that everyone now asks for at my shows – while wearing my t shirt with the lyrics on! I mean how weird is that! A year ago I was just strumming a few songs around a fire. To say that I’m excited about performing that song on stage at this year’s Farmer Phil’s would be an understatement. In fact I think I’ll have a rum to calm myself down, if there’s any left of course…