Thanks to everyone who came and supported the festival this year.  We had a great time, and we hope you did too.  It was wonderful to see over a thousand people each evening enjoying the beer, music and dancing.

The entertainment kicked off with a return for the Old Thumper jazz band with their traditional brand of Dixieland.

The second band on Thursday evening was another colourful and welcome return for the Jive Aces.  this energetic band entertained us with a wide mix of classics and soon got people on the dance floor.  With a fantastic new frame tent this year there were no poles for Ian Clarkson to clai, but this didn’t stop him as he invaded the crowd to serenade a young woman.  The Jive Aces finished off the evening with a packed dance floor and an encore.

Regular festival goers may remember last year’s floods on Friday evening.  Thankfully this year the rain held off during the day and the site wasn’t floating.  Yet the Friday curse struck again as the heavens opened just as the festival opened.  Those who made it through the downpour into the tent we well protected from the elements ans cheered up by some ale and another fantastic line up. Given we’ve been going for 21 years and only 4 nights have been badly affected by the weather we hope this is the last we have seen of the rain for a while.

Strangely enough we had on this evening’s programme the two bands that had failed to make it last year.  Again we had a combination of some more traditional Dixieland from The Dave Shepherd Dixielanders to kick the evening off.

The other act on the bill was the more up tempo Dr Teeth Big Band with their mix of jive, swing, boogie and whatever else they fancied throwing in.  By the end of the evening they had most of the crowd squeezed onto the dance floor enraptured by the performance.  We couldn’t get them to stop… or the crowd to leave!

On Saturday the sun finally came out to play  and around 1500 folk came from all over the country to finish off the ales, chill in the summer sunshine and see some new bands for the festival.  The TJ Johnson was a fantastic smooth introduction to Saturday evening with some great vocals and toe tapping rhythm.

Then it was some more fantastic jive, swing and boogie to get people up and dancing as our second new band The Slammers Maximum Jive Band took to the stage and proved to be another hit with the crowd, creating a fantastic energy and buzz.

So whether you are a veteran regular who never misses a festival, or someone who has never been before we hope you had a fantastic time and will come back next year for our 22nd offering.  There really isn’t better for those of us from the hockey club who work hard all year to put on the festival to hear people telling us they’ve had a great night out.   If you couldn’t make it, take a look at what you missed and hopefully we can tempt you along with our beer and music selection next year.

The dates for the next festival are 16, 17 and 18th July 2009.  Advanced purchase tickets offering a discount and a free ticket for groups of 6 or more will go on sale in early June until the 12th July.  See you then!

The RAAJ Crew

 You can also read the write up from our sponsors the Reading Evening Post