What was once a great local festival held on Morris Farm by the Brown family called Brownstock, is now a great festival full stop. Shying away from all things corporate year on year the festival has grown, and this year sold out, the festival welcoming 6,000 festival goers to the site for the weekend. 

The difference this year was the amount of new venues added offering an even more diverse range of music genres. Plus the huge new stage was also a welcomed addition making it feel like you were at a much larger festival but with all the perks of a small festival. Plus we noticed the audience was made up of a much wider age group, with many families attending.

The festival felt like it had found the winning formula it had been striving towards over the last 9 years and the atmosphere could not have been more chilled and relaxed. The festival arena opened at 6:00 on Friday and didn’t take long to fill as revellers explored the site.

On the Main Stage local indie favourites Stealing Signs got the evening off to a colourful start. Their set began and finished with a streamers being sent into the crowd, performing a collection of old favourites much to the delight of a good size enthusiastic crowd.    

Next up was Crème De Chevre, to call them a covers band doesn’t do them justice. Their folk rock interpretations is a thing of beauty, there set included a Chemical Brothers  mash up which included ‘Block Rockin Beats’, ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’ and ‘Galvanise’. The set was concluded with a song which will be forever associated with this area of Essex, Rage Against The Machine’s, ‘Killing In The Name Of’ a great set which went down a storm with everyone.

Festivals For All were invited by the festival to select three bands to perform at one of the new venues called The slippery Saddle Saloon. A wooden bolt hole, with cowboy style swinging doors and saddled chair. The venue proved to be a real gem, as always designed by the multi talented Anna Brown whose eye for design and detail is second to none.

It was like stepping into a tardis that transported you to a whiskey shack in the wild wild west. Friday we were delighted to see two of our chosen bands performing Rabbit Foot and 27 Strings.

Rabbit Foot delivered 45 minutes of gorgeous blues, a combination of dirty guitar combined with hypnotic drumming beats. Whilst 27 Strings, some incredibly young talent had the whole place dancing and the wooden floor was literally bouncing. Unlike most stages encores were allowed and they did a rousing version of The Charlie Daniels Band ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’.  They also played a set on Saturday night in the Piano Bar, but alas it was too late for the fiddle player.   

The Friday headliner on the main was DJ Yoda, the guys ability to combine music of different genres and periods is legendary, and it was staggering to see so many under 25’s singing their hearts out to Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash and Nina Simone.  

What else could finish off day one of the festival but their very own Mat Format spinning some mixes in The Good Shed. But if you’re a party animal fear not as The Piano bar hosted by pianodj.co. uk had some cabaret on offer as well as the silent disco keeping the entertainment going until 6am, so no time to sleep it’s just one big party. 

We woke up Saturday to more glorious blue skies and a warm sun, just ideal for another day at the farm. 

Being true to their ethos of supporting emerging talent there were a number of unsigned bands getting their chance to play on the main stage. Saturday we arrived to catch the set by Disembowelled By Sharks who were chosen by Sundays headliners The Fratellis. The band for South East London played an interesting mix of jazz infused rock which was well received again by a good sized crowd showing support for this early slot.

The Milk has been a permanent fixture at Brownstock over the years, and have performed a number of great sets. The local band now nationally known performed several tracks from their album ‘Tales From The Thames Delta’, plus some new tracks.

As always in the piano Bar each year Jess Brown and Si performed to a packed tent and it was great to see Nan Brown and quite a few more mature festival goers coming along to take in this now legendary set.

Tom Odell appeared to be a strange selection of sub headliner on the Main Stage, but the revellers didn’t think so, as singing, swaying and even screaming on occasions, indeed, he proved to be ideal aperitif. 

With Rudimental crying off at the last moment Professor Green was dropped in at the eleventh hour, and it’s fair to say the feedback to the announcement was mixed, however the moment he walked on stage all those reservations were banished. To say he controlled the crowd would be an understatement, he had them eating out of the palm of his hand, his set included a string of his hit’s including ‘Just Be good To Green’ and ‘Need You Tonight’.

Over in The Slippery Saddle Saloon The Dreaming Spires put on a set that nearly brought the tin roof down, taking requests from the floor, they had the whole place a singin’ and a dancin’ and there wasn’t an inch of space to fit another person in..

The venue continued to entertain until 3am and I don’t think we have ever stayed so late every night at the festival as we did this year, due to the sheer quality of all the acts known or new to us.

The Good Shed was full to the rafters for the DJ sets from Jaguar Skills, Benga & Youngman and a great headline set from Mark Ronson. But at 2:00 am The Piano Bar was definitely the place to be as Crème De Chevre played their now traditional set, much to the delight of everyone present.

Two days partying had taken its toll and looking around the site on Sunday there was a more laid back vibe, the pub quiz in The Piano Bar was about the pace most could cope with, and the tempo was raised by a Veterans vs Virgins paint fight which added even more colour to the event. 

Following their great performance at Reading, we wondered how Hadouken! would be received at Brownstock, well, thankfully it was much the same with the crowd going mad!. The set culminated with a great rendition of ‘Levitate’.

During the day The Good Shed’s timetable had been ‘confused’ due to Beardyman’s plane being delayed, so Roni Size, took to the decks early for a great mix of Drum ‘n’ Bass. He also tried to get security to change their mind and not throw someone out of the tent for a minor misdemeanour with the whole tent chanting with him.

The Slippery Saddle Saloon on Sunday saw the third and final band selected by Festivals For All Frankie The Gambler, they played a great set of thigh thumping folk songs, which seemed to be about drinking much to everybody’s delight.  

The Pigeon Detectives know how to put on a show, front man Matt Bowman, it still seem’s  is full of angst whether jumping into the crowd, strutting around the stage or showering the crowd with water. Their set included all their top 40 singles and culminates with ‘I’m Not Sorry’, much to the pleasure of an ever growing crowd.

The band with the job of closing the Main Stage was The Fratellis, they strolled on stage and within seconds burst into ‘Henrietta’, they continue at the same pace with classics like ‘Cuntry Boys & City Girls’,  ‘Flathead’ and ‘Baby Fratelli’. As Jon sipped on his water, Mince starts the familiar drum beat and within seconds the crowd are singing ‘Chelsea Dagger’, after about 20 seconds the band  join in. Still time for one more song ‘A Heady Tale’ and then they are gone.  

Let’s not forget that although there is an abundance of music at Brownstock, a total of 96 bands played alongside 36 DJ sets. We need to mention a number of the other venues on site we frequented over the weekend.

The Tree House run by Noise kitten had a fantastic line up of bands to watch out for. Even an old pile of swept up leaves by Vicky Brown was magically transformed into a creative set of birds nests for the punters to sit in, where does all this creativity come from? We witnessed some great sets there over the weekend including Darcy & New City Kings.

There was also the ever popular Stumble Inn hosted by Gist and another new venue for 2013 with ‘Be Part Of It’, of course a hand made UFO popping out of the ground in a secret area which saw dancing into the night on the tables while aliens wandered around, decorated with big Boom box style speakers. Where do they find the time to visualize all these ideas whilst dealing with the day to day planning of a festival? Oh and did we mention the beach with deck chairs, surf boards and a boat to sit in with real sand.

During the weekend we were treated to some free running around the site by Team Traceur, some dancing and acrobatics from Bam Bam Boogies and the Triple Sword team showing off their skateboard & Bmx skills alongside some tightrope tuitions.

One of the biggest challenges of the weekend was determining what to eat with such a range of high quality food vendors. Pizza For The People is always a safe bet, their stone baked pizza’s are the best on the circuit. On Saturday it was time for Jimmy Garcia’s Cow versus Pig burger, quite simply one of the best burger’s we have ever tasted. On Sunday going with tradition we decided on a Sunday Roast with all the trimmings a festival first. 

Although tempting we decided against Jimmy Garcia’s Pop Up Restaurant sample tasting menu at £35 for 4 courses, but plenty of others did, and the restaurant was full at every sitting over the weekend with a sign on Sunday saying ‘See you in 2014’. Let’s not forget  to mention to The  Eatery who return year in year out to water and feed the happy campers.

This year also saw a dedicated disabled viewing platform in front of the main stage and more recycling bin’s than you could shake a stick at keeping the site looking clean throughout. The one area we could see room for improvement was the lack of choice and beers and ciders on offer. 

However, this was by far the best Brownstock we have attended to date with possibly their best line up ever, with an eclectic mix to suit everyone’s taste. The addition of the new venues meant you could stumble from venue to venue and discover new festival favourites.

The addition of the stilt walkers, people in elaborate fancy dress costumes and Rimski’s piano on wheels travelling around the site with some additional new artefacts, gave lots of photo opportunities including the addition of the taxi photo booth. Sadly the amount of people in fancy dress was lacking this year. Note to yourselves for next year make an effort.

We hope that Brownstock may continue for many years to come and that it’s imaginative ideas will continue to entertain us. If you have not been before we advise you to give it a whirl before the word spreads further afield.

Despite the tragic incidents at the festival this should not detract from what was a truly excellent festival, and it should look forward to 2014 with great confidence.

Hope to #meetatthefarm again in 2014 for what can only be a beefier bash no doubt.