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Review: Ham Farm Festival – ‘A hidden gem’
Bristol has always had its hidden corners where interesting things happen, corners bursting with joyful magic, corners of unexpected beauty.
The three-day Ham Farm Festival is exactly one of those corners.
Tucked in with the suburban new builds of Emerson’s Green, out on Bristol’s north-eastern edge, Ham Farm Cottage is a green-tinged oasis. A big garden attached to a beautiful stone house, there is an ancient orchard, raspberry canes, a fish pond and the buzzy feel of an early-evening garden party.
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Over the course of the weekend the garden becomes a corner of creativity. There are community choirs, junk drumming, a ceilidh and beautiful music-making in the afternoons and then double-header concerts in the evening.
If WOMAD carried a tiny festival in its pocket, one to show the glory of eclectic music tastes, it would look like this.
The Andrews Massey duo played to a full tent to kick the festival off on Friday – photo: Ham Farm Festival
Saturday night sees the rhythms of South America and southern Europe colliding with this very English country garden.
To sit amongst the apple trees as Clube do Choro send spirals of infectious party music up, nudging the pears and apples as they go, is a glorious thing. You realise that you could be anywhere in the world, as the warmth slowly leaves the day and friendship, great music and good food is left behind.
Flamenco Raíces are a clattering, whirling treat. Adrián Solá’s intricate guitar patterns and the extraordinary dancing of Lourdes Fernández are spellbinding. Heels rattle the stage, propulsive and passionate, while handclaps, violin and drum whip and whirl around them. It’s wonderful, breathless stuff.
As befits a Sunday, there’s a slight change of pace. Laura Snowdon’s classical guitar playing is light and delicate. Baroque pieces, arrangements of folk songs and eerie contemporary classical moments flow like a silvery stream through the garden.
The three Preludes by Villa Lobos are lovely and the Tarantella by Johann Kasper Mertz completely captivating.
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After Snowdon’s virtuosity, the Orkney-born folk quartet FARA are the perfect way to bring this tiny gem of a festival to a close.
The three fiddles of Jeana Leslie, Catriona Price and Kristian Harvey, and Harris Playfair on piano, bring the wilds of Northern Scotland to this tranquil space.
They sail on the winds, sometimes storm-tossed, sometimes arcing in flight. Broom Power starts as a “limpy waltz” until the fiddles take off, sweeping around one another, urging feet to dance.
The West Tide Story set soundtracks the sea and the sky, it has the drama of an Orkney sunset and bubbles with barroom laughter.
As the Shapinsay Polka gently unfolds, the audience can hold back no longer; there’s an outbreak of skipping and spaces are found amongst the foliage to kick up heels.
Whoops and handclaps follow Price’s high notes as White Horse Power, from their latest album Energy Islands, fizzes, sending glittering effervescence to all corners of the garden.
FARA are steeped in the poetry of their home islands: it shows in the sweep of their tunes but in their songs too. Song in the Night adapts an eighteenth-century Orcadian poem and turns it into something even more beautiful.
Leslie starts to sing but soon Price and Harvey join, their harmonies friendship-tight. Playfair adds gentle piano twinkles until the fiddles swirl again. There’s that shift between calm and tempestuous, between serenity and drama.
The Road Home comes from a poem too. This time Playfair injects some swing and sass as he allows his jazzy roots to show, twirling smart arpeggios. It is, again, the harmonies and then the fiddles that have toes tapping though.
A fantastic version of Joe South’s the Games People Play allow for some enthusiastic audience la-las and My Heart is in the Highlands wafts in on warm July air. Each song has a story; each story sees the members of FARA grinning and collapsing into giggles.
Finally, time runs out in this secret garden. Once the furious fiddles, pounding keys and delighted clapping of Billy’s fades, FARA unplug. The Hampshire, written for those lost in the Scapa Flow tragedy, swoops and swoons, sending us back into Bristol’s suburbs with hearts full.
Ham Farm Festival is now five years old and it is, simply, one of the loveliest, most magical corners that Bristol has to offer. In a city of wonders, it is a hidden gem.
Read more of Gavin’s thoughts on folk, music and life at tallfolk.substack.com
Main image: Gavin McNamara
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