It seems the way to improve a disappointing park is to hold a local music festival in it—or so Heather and I discovered.

We headed back to Priory Gardens for Priory Live, our second local music festival this month. Once again we were lucky to find the sun shining, and a lovely festival atmosphere in front of the stage. That was helped by the little surround of children’s fair rides, a hook-a-duck to keep Heather happy, and food outlets (though they lacked much vegetarian option for Heather). Unlike Petts Woodstock there wasn’t a bar set up but an entire craft beer bus (hey still ran out of beer though).

We arrived to the sounds of Behind The Lens who were good enough. Things went downhill with Red Soul though, a weird mix of decent voice and poor electronica. These things tend to take some time to warm up though so Heather and I went for some lunch in one of Orpington’s newest offerings, Pato Lounge. It’s a relaxed atmosphere of a place, though perhaps a bit too relaxed when it’s almost impossible to tell who actually works there. The food was nice enough, if a little silly presentation wise (I’m never a fan of chips coming in little tubs and the like).

Filled up it was back to the festival, and things soon picked up with the appearance of the rather good Cannery Row.

They were followed by the competent Feral Ghost (I think they sounded better live than watching their videos reminds me of). Unfortunately we then got the attitude laden Jean Mikhael (seriously, who turns up wearing a stupid little cape with backing dancers?? Come back when you’ve more than a twitter page to your name to match the think you’re god attitude).

There were a couple of other artists, notably Thomas Ashby who Heather rather liked but I found a bit formulaic folksy so common of artists these days, before we got another view of The Dirty Perks who were just as good as a couple of weeks earlier.

They were followed by someone who seemed to have his entire family to cheer him along, Little Blue Light a fun filled bounce, and the impressive Natalie Shay—before the excellent Starts Hill rocked the stage.

We were closed out by Hannah Symons and the enjoyable Suburban Star, complete with fire works in the finally darkened sky.

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