To mark the successful completion of HIBBETTFEST I thought I'd use the information that resides within The Database Of ROCK to generate some FACTS about the history of the festival that many people have hailed as "The best festival to ever recur in Ray's Mum's Back Garden".
So, the first thing to say is that there have been 14 Hibbettfests overall since 2004. Fallow years occurred in 2006, 2015 and 2019 for reasons that I can't remember, and from 2020 to 2022 for Global Crisis Reasons.
Hibbettfests are defined here as events occurring in Ray's Mum's Back Garden. There was an earlier proto-Hibbettfest which took place in Winchester on 10 August 2003 in Ray's Back Garden, but although this was arranged by Ray's Mum (as a surprise birthday celebration for Ray) it was not until it reached its official venue the following year that Hibbettfests as we know them today properly began.
The median date for gigs to happen was 28 July, while the mean date is 25 July. As the graph below shows, Hibbettfest has occurred at different times over the years, although most often in August.
Over the fourteen Hibbettfests I have performed 73 different songs. The table below shows all of those performed 3 or more times.
Comparing this to the overall list from the first one thousand gigs we can see that the major surprises are the high placing for (You Make Me Feel) Soft Rock and the non-appearance of Hey Hey 16K . I'm pretty sure that's because I have long realised that its appeal is severely limited amongst audiences that are 50% small babies and dogs. Maybe that's why Dinosaurs Talk Like Pirates appears so often - thinking about it, I reckon that's a HIT in the canine and/or infant communities!
Moving on, Hibbettfest is, of course, not just about me. I mean, it's NAMED after me and everything but there have been various other people who've played. This all began in 2008, with the arrival Pete Green as the first guest artiste, and since then several more people have shared the stage/patio. Key amongs them was Ray himself who has compered almost all of them, as well as providing the buffet. No statistics are available for how much I have eaten from said buffet, but a rough approximation would be A LOT.
Apart from Ray, the people who have joined me on the patio the most times are Mr Steve Hewitt and Tom 'The Tiger' McClure, at four times each, including 2023. Mr Tim Pattison has played three times, Frankie Machine and Alexander Christopher Hale twice, and there have been one-time only appearances from Chris T-T, Daniel and Norbert Dentrassangle, Emma Pattison, Gavin Osborn. Jasmine Allen Estate, Matt Tiller, Shelley from Finance, Dunc Vernon and the aforementioned Pete Green.
If we compare these names to the list of People I Have ROCKED With during the first one thousand gigs, we can see that Steve tops both, but that Tom has clambered boldly over Tim and Frankie to get to joint first position. After that we can see that the list of people who've shared a patio with me is not all that different to those who've done the same on a more conventional "stage".
To summarise then, the actual content of Hibbettfest gigs did not vary all that much from gigs overall - it had a fairly standard setlists of BANGERS, with the usual glittering array of ROCK STARS joining me on stage. The difference, then, was in the venue itself. Sadly I have never recorded DELIGHTFULNESS of promoters or EXCELLENCE of Estate Managers, but if I had then the various Kirkhams would have been charttoppers. Similarly I have never recorded excellence of RIDER because a) I don't usually get one and b) none would ever have compared to that received at Hibbettfest. Truly, it has been a wonderful thing, and I salute it in the best possible way - through FACTS!
posted 14/8/2023 by MJ Hibbett
