As I roll into the SupaJam ticket tent on Sunday afternoon (late, grumpy, tired, stinking, etc) I was surprised – nay delighted- to hear a grotty Sabbath riff snarling through the canvas from out back of the tent. Poking my stupid head through the flaps who should I see but this guy:

The one and only Mr. Lewis Floyd Henry, formly of coulda-shoulda New Cross squat rockers Known. Lewis is known for a few things: plucking a mean Hendrix influenced stoner metal guitar, his drawling, near hip hop style vocals, and playing songs that go on for flipping ages. Today Lewis is backed up by 4 kids on percussion (and by kids I mean 8 year olds) leaving him free to hammer away at his tiny drum kit, thrash a toy guitar and lead the crowd of hyped up revellers in a call and response:

“What do we want?” we shouts into his tinny headset “Winds of change!” the crowd oblige. “When do we want it?” yep, you guessed, “NOW”

Next up he’s covering Wu Tang’s Protect Your Neck… I honestly wasn’t expecting to hear a crowd at Hop Farm chanting WU…..TANG… like a pack of rabid Statton Island car jackers, but Lewis is nothing if not a persuasive chap- it’s this charm, along with a bunch of belting songs, that allowed him to come out of nowhere and snatch number 4 in the Sunday Times’ best albums of 2011…

Rain stops play for a good 20 minutes. And when I say rain I mean shitting, grinding, Christ-am-I-at-Glastonbury rain. We hide in the tent. Everyone in sight hides in the tent. The tent is bursting at the seams, people are scrambling over each other, grinding sodden bodies into Somme mud for the tiniest scrap of canvas. This could get mean. Luckily the sun comes back in moments, Lewis plays a heavy assed cover of The Kinks You Really Got Me, a new crowd forms and cheers and Hop Farm is back on the go.

Main stage? Meh…who needs it… Today it’s all about the mad skills of a gutterblues dawg… Check out the website: Lewis Floyd Henry