Paul Weller, The Stone Roses and Oasis in one hit! (Day 21)

Well I might not have been at Glastonbury this weekend but I did make it to The NeaRly Festival in the village my Mum and Step-Dad live. We booked tickets ages ago for this, as well as a room at the 'rents being as we could just walk back afterwards. We took our Daughter and my husbands two Brothers, their wives and kids all came plus my Mum, Step-Dad and Sister, as well as more family and friends that we met there.

I have to be honest and confess to being a little apprehensive as to how the day was going to turn out. We had heard that they'd sold 500 tickets plus a child free with every paying adult, which although doesn't sound a lot, for a village thing it would mean quite a busy event for a small place. So I was wondering how organised it would be, whether the field behind Darby's (the host pub) would be big enough? Would they section it off with a fence so people that didn't have tickets couldn't sneak in (why that matters to me I don't know? Perhaps I'm turning into a busy body?!). I wondered where people would park as the car park for the pub wouldn't be big enough (again why this concerns me when I'd be walking I don't know! I think it's my events background chewing everything over!)

I have to say hats off to NeaRly as they prepared it like clockwork and all of the above was covered. It was very well organised from the tickets at the gate, the fencing off of the festival area, to the car parking, staffing and everything else involved. The only thing they would probably need to be a bit more prepared for next year is to have a bigger beer tent and maybe some more stalls, including more variety of foods (something for vegetarians or those with common food allergies like celiac etc). However, this takes nothing away from the event, as for the first go it was spot on and the beer tent being so busy only means that they were taking lots of money, so hopefully a green light for something similar next year! Even waiting in the queue for drinks didn't really matter as you could see the stage from there and for me I bumped into a different person I hadn't seen for years each time so the perfect excuse for a good natter. I grew up in this village from about age 12 to 18, so it was really lovely to see lots of familiar faces. It was strange actually as I kept seeing kids running around that I recognised, who were probably offspring of people I used to know when I was young!

Whilst on the subject of kids there was just about enough to keep them occupied for a while, bouncy castle (although at £2 for 5 minutes it was a bit of a rip off and they even had a timer so not an extra second of bouncing allowed!), another spinny fair ground type ride, donkey rides, a bucking bronco for the bigger kids and adults and some squaddies from the new unit at the army barracks in the village brought along one of their tanks for the kids to climb all over and play with, which was a nice touch. Then there were stalls for donuts, candy floss, bubbles and an ice cream van. Oh and a plant stall, which was probably a bit out of place for this event really...

The music was pretty good. Tribute acts for Paul Weller, The Stone Roses and Oasis being the three headline acts. Actually as it turned out the same band played all of these sets, which isn't unusual for these kind of tunes I suppose. Paul Weller was probably their weakest, either that or I was just more sober at that point, as they played first! I guess typical to a gig like this, the atmosphere picks up as the time ticks by, as people have warmed up and are really in the mood for a good dance by the end of the night. There were loads of us having a good boogie in front of the stage for the Oasis headlining set and with such a stunning backdrop of the village whilst the sun went down it was the perfect end to a fabulous day.


As planned it all wrapped up at 10pm, just in time for us to saunter home before it got too dark to see. Great day! Well done NeaRly Festival and Darby's Freehouse, looking forward to next year!!

I also had a little epiphany when I was dancing away, in that it was actually 19 years ago that I first saw Oasis live! Wow, feeling pretty 'mature' right now!