Honeyfest Festival
Pewsey, Wiltshire
16/04/2011

One stage, seven acts and just a thousand or so tickets. We refer to Honeyfest – a teeny tiny day festival in Wiltshire pulling out all the stops for the good of their local community pub.

The Barge inn, saved by the villagers of Pewsey (along with a nice chunk of funding from the lottery) today hosts a one-off musical extravaganza to mark the reopening of the beloved boozer. And the line-up, featuring Damien Rice, Laura Marling and The Magic Numbers, ensures tickets are sold out long before the event. Once battle-of the bands winners Slagerij, pleasing local Matthew Kilford and folk favourites Martha & Arthurs have drawn in a moderate crowd we are introduced to Dry The River. These five guys, one with a fiddle, will be playing several festivals this year. Their latest single, ‘New Ceremony’, gets a few yelps of recognition and we can’t help but notice lead singer Peter Liddle has a twang of the Caleb Followills about him.

The Magic Numbers are next up – all smiles as they step on stage and perform a mix of old favourites plus new tracks from latest album ‘Runaways’. A cover of Neil Young’s ‘Harvest Moon’ goes down a storm as does closing tune, ‘Love Me Like You’. Laura Marling is due next on stage but is running a little late. Enter beat-boxer, Schlomo to inject a little bit of village fete to proceedings. Finally Marling mania is unleashed and suddenly we’re caught up in the stampede to catch a glimpse of the folk darling’s first gig of 2011. Thunderous applause meets the announcement that her third album is finished and we’re treated to a medley of two new songs followed by a mix of old and new including clear favourite, ‘Ghosts’.

Despite desperate chanting, Marling refuses an encore and rather meanly hops straight in her car back to London. Never mind. It’s the return of the village fete and we’re mildly amused that Miss Marling has seemingly played support to the White Horse Gyspy caravan raffle. Headliner Damien Rice takes his seat next, and with little ceremony he launches into opening track ‘The Professor’ and follows with new songs plus predictable crowd-pleasers ‘Blower’s Daughter’ and ‘Cannonball’. He also wins a few fans with his all-inclusive rendition of ‘Volcano’ – engaging the eager audience as backing singers.

Rice answers calls for an encore – but brings along The Magic Numbers and Dry The River. What follows is surprising. Their rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’ and Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ deftly sidestep cheesy territory and provides a touching end to a frankly fantastic festival. Matching such a stellar line-up again next year will be a challenging – but we’re hoping the Honeyfest chaps will at least try, and keep the cosy local vibe to boot.

Roxanne Fisher