Taking the train in true hobo style, which at one point even resulted in being offered a seat by a young person… three days beard growth to blame, we arrived at Hilden Brewery just in time to catch Anthony Toner’s set on the Tipi stage. Aided on keyboards by John McCullough, Anthony opened with the classic ‘East of Louise’. Having keyboards really augmented his sound and allowed him stretch out his songs. Dedicating ‘Sailor Town’ to the late Gerry Anderson brought much appreciation from the audience. Going solo for ‘Well, Well, Well’ sounded great, but the subtlety of the song was somewhat lost on the audience who talked through most of the set. Nevertheless a great performance from two very talented musicians and a great way to start our day.
Taking ourselves out to explore we immediately noticed how family friendly the festival is. It was great to see so many children running around chaperoning their slightly tipsy parents. After grabbing a quick burger and a pint of Twisted Hop it was time to make our way back to the Tipi stage for Malojian.
Stevie, Joe and Michael didn’t disappoint us either. A festival favourite they managed to grab the attention of most of the talkers with their usual quirky brand of songs. ‘Communion Girls’, ‘Mario’ and ‘Bathtub Blues’ were definitely highlights with Stevie’s sense of humour shining through on them all. Solid sound and crystal clear harmonies along with Michael adding electing guitar into the mix alongside his drumming made this a special performance which went down well with our pints of Scullion’s Irish.
Over on the main stage it was time for the headline act. We were looking forward to seeing Bap Kennedy again after he played a blinder at the start of the summer supporting Horslips at Dunluce. Joining him again tonight as on that night alongside his regular band and doing a double shift today was keyboard genius John McCullough (surely one of the hardest working keyboard players in Ireland at the moment). Early sound problems and an intrusive sound engineer didn’t help the first two songs and distracted Bap, but by song three, ‘Unforgiven’, he’d pulled it back together again. Quickly realising he wasn’t playing to a music festival audience, but instead a beer festival audience he threw in some covers into his set. ‘Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down’ recently given a new audience by Robert Plant was a crowd pleaser as was ‘That’s Alright Mama’ as a tribute to Elvis Presley. By this time most of the talkers were dancing and half way through his set a cover of Van Morrison’s ‘Madame George’ dedicated to Gerry Anderson also won over the audience.
Sadly due to the train timetable we weren’t able to stay for all of Bap’s set, but we could tell as we left he’d pulled a rabbit of out his hat by reading the situation and the audience quickly and turning the gig into a real crowd pleasing pub rock and roll type gig. Swiftly downing our Belfast Blonde we made our way back to the train station after a very enjoyable day out and we look forward to seeing what the organisers at Hilden will come up next year. Regardless of the great musical entertainment the beer and the friendly atmosphere alone are worth making the trip for and we heartily recommend the beers.