Is it me, is it you or did my dreams come true Sunday night at Jimmy’s festival? I’ll answer that for you: hell yeah! Not only did I get to see The Kooks who played the sound track to my early teens, I managed to hustle my way back stage to nab an interview with my music hero Luke Pritchard aka the band’s front man. So I suppose it’s a reasonable conclusion that this review might be a tad biased.

The farm was filling fast on Saturday morning yet a chilled ambience was taking shape. After passing the last barrier I was warmly greeted by a mouth- watering, belly-grumbling bbq aroma. In fact, the sweet scent of good quality cuisine is still fresh in my nostrils!

Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer amount of food available. There was something to wet every appetite from British Bistro style food at The Street Kitchen to vegetarian specialities at Wholefood Heaven. There was even an option for those that like Ostrich! Come to think of it, some of the prices were a bit dear but I could definitely taste the difference and got my money’s worth of high quality ingredients. Unfortunately I missed out on the fork sharing and sampling. Perhaps I didn’t look desperate enough or claim to be starving as some crafty audience members did during Jamie Oliver’s cooking show. Taking this huge set back into account, I decided that in order to give a balanced and accurate review of the food, it was necessary if not crucially essential that I sampled a vast range of grub, for the benefit of IP1 readers. And I can honestly say, having done so, that it was all pretty good! For breakfast I had one of Jimmy’s own beef burgers, reasonably priced, as well as his famous pork hot dogs which I would highly recommend. Last year’s winner of The Street Kitchen Awards, the Fish Hut served a scrumptious fish, chips and mushy peas lunch and finally for dinner I rounded the day off with a succulent lamb wrap from the Lamb Roast farmer’s market stall. Of course this experience was made all the more enjoyable by the exciting line-up of local, national and international performers.

As a musician myself, I was very interested to see most of the acts showcasing at the weekend. Alice Gold was particularly impressive both on the BBC Introducing acoustic set and the main stage. She had bags of charisma and enticed the audience with her husky rock/soul voice, definitely one to watch out for! A few favourites of other festival goers were The Feeling, Tom Reilly and Fat Freddy’s Drop. Local star Charlie Simpson put on a very popular set with the audience and was totally reppin’ Suffolk in his interviews.

On Sunday night the crowd chanted ‘Ji-mmy! Ji-mmy! Ji-mmy! Ji-mmy!…’ as he leapt on stage to announce the headlining act that everyone had been waiting for. It was a sure sign of approval that he had done it again and hosted another outstanding festival. I spoke to a few eager Kooks fans that had been holding their place in the front row for eight hours, without a toilet break! Nevertheless, everyone seemed to agree that it was worth the wait and bladder pains as The Kooks were phenomenal, once they took the stage at Harvest at Jimmy’s it became the cherry on top of a fantastic festival.

There is no doubt that Harvest at Jimmy’s is a family friendly event. However, if you see this as a disadvantage, I would like to highlight some benefits: In the evening most of the young kids go off to sleep so it’s easy to make your way to the front of the stage when families are leaving the crowd and also if you’ve come to listen to the music you can do it quite comfortably without being trampled and then swallowed into an angry mosh-pit.

If you haven’t been already, make sure you see for yourself what a great festival Harvest at Jimmy’s is. And if, like me, you have then I’m sure you won’t need any convincing to go again next summer!

Words: Yoji Munuo