CKCU Barnstorm 10

Someone referred to Barnstorm as "the Monte Carlo of music festivals", because every little detail is seen to, & whim looked after. The festival boasts the perfect trippy 60's style landscape, complete with mysterious & plush walking paths, & lasers projected onto the forest treeline.

This was my fourth year attending, and it was the best one yet (although the 1st one I attended in '06 was pretty damn great). The line-up was rock-solid. Stand-outs for me were Evil Farm Children & the Bushpilots, and the prevailing flavour was surf-punk.

As usual, I missed the one ho-down (by Evil Farm Children) which lasted about 60 seconds. (A couple small children were blocking the entrance & -as much as I wanted to- I didn't think it'd be cool to bulldoze them.) 90 Pounds of Ugly, featuring Lefty McRighty of O-Town Hodown infamy, went on too late for me to stomp the planks. Regardless, we got our dance on to the Bushpilots & Evil Farm Children. Not to mention the chill-out barn, with CKCU's Matthew Crosier spinnin' the vinyl. No dance-off in there for me this year, but it was close.

There were more campers this year than I've seen before. A few folks packed their tents in around 11pm and either went home to sleep or slept in their cars, but there was respite with a warm early morning after a slightly chilly night.

Tom Pechloff (Bushpilots, Ken Workman & the Union) brought a bottle of the CC that annually fells him (@ every Barnstorm except last year's), but thankfully the beer didn't run out & the bottle of hooch wasn't called into action.

Here's just one example of Tic's impeccable planning... At a music festival whenever there's a bonfire there is one essential ingredient - a skid. Well, Tic had a whole pile of skids propped against the chill-out barn, about 50 feet from the fire. There were more skids there than we could burn!

It was nice to see a big crowd this year for such a deserving event. Tic, I want to play it next year! :)