Aeon's scope broadens each year without compromising its indie ethos

A tinge of concern as I entered Aeon Festival - Universal Studios seem to have built the front gate this year, with Jurassic Park style gates displaying this year's 'Global Safari' theme. Did this mean Aeon's rapid growth in recent years has lead it away from its 'shoestring boutique' ethos?

No, we're alright; we've still got the warmly-decorated grounds of Shobrooke Park, the familiar elves' kingdom flags and cyber-fantasy graffiti, the firelit greencraft activities in wooded glades, and a good fancy-dress effort from a fluffy crowd of zebras gathering round reclaimed metal chimineas.

If there's been a pay-off for Aeon's expansion it's in the more regimented arrangements around parking and camping; that said the stewards are friendly as ever, and the festival retains and enhances its community-driven feel this year by continuing to shun corporate sponsorship and favouring local indie traders for the stalls. "Only a fool can pass a free bookshop" is the banner for Exeter's Bookcycle charity project. The festival ground is compact but well arranged, allowing the effortless drifting between stages rather than the track-based people-herding that can happen at that larger festivals.

Decent food is fairly priced – the Food Groove being a favourite, meals served up to gypsy music and Bhangra beats. Community art and performance is everywhere – from the carved water-skiing crocodile in the lake to the 1950s cinema bus showing social documentaries and progressive animations.

The Prophecy Ice Station aka the main stage, is in a lakeside natural amphitheatre with tiered seating on a hillside, and hosts enthusiastic garage bands in the daytime and blends into soulful ambient acts at sunset. Saturday's daytime highlight was the neo-mod Flash Bang Band: Franz Ferdinand meets Bon Jovi in a mate's garage. With good haircuts and a frontline trumpeter. Early evening moved through the expansive ambience of Neotropicto the Matthew Halsall Band: an unpretentious but soulful jazz quintet making the rare achievement of rich, warm jazz which varies in tempo and feel with impressive solos but doesn't disappear up its own esoteric backside.

The removal of last year's disappointing hip-hop stage gives room for an extra dance tent this year, hosting groovy alternatives (like Exeter's long-running Magic Hat Stand, deep house with bring-and-share flamboyant headgear)to the stomping sets in the JTC Temple Of Dance. The Dance temple is more impressive than in previous years, with multi-screen visualisations under a circus-art starfield canvas, and is well-scheduled: Banging electro and D&B in the evenings (Maxxi P's Friday night set was a stand-out with dynamic MCing to aggressive beats) and intelligent, bouncy house during the sunny hours. Saturday afternoon was well-provided by the local no-nonsense outfit NONOM, whose customary minimal techno has a deep-house groove and old-school samples giving it an unashamed dirty edge.

Saturday evening's hiddden gem was the Arabic Balkan Gypsy Band. Getting a tentful of drunken south-west Englanders to dance to a 9/8 time signature is no mean feat, but the band transfixed the punters in the CV Tropical Hideout bar with their mesmeric blend of European folk with eastern instrumentation and on-stage belly dancer.

Aeon is primarily music-driven but there are creative, conciousness-raising community enterprises offering family activities all day, so this reviewer gave his ears a rest on Sunday and explored some of this. The expanded children's and craft area included woodturning workshops from Touch of the Wild - a sustainability project offering hands-on demonstrations making simple wooden furniture and tools. Shakey Sharky Circus offered bigtop education with circus-skills workshops in diabolo, devilsticks, poi, platespinning, and juggling. Shakey Sharky's omni-competent organiser Jacob Cawkwell said "it's definitely an all-age activity, though the parents do tend to hog the equipment a bit!"

Sunday night's main stage acts were diverse in style and quality. Maybe Myrtle Turtle can only be described as prog-country-and-western, apparently fronted by Willie Nelson and Frank Zappa's lovechild in a purple-jacket and magical-mystery-tour facial hair. This reviewer has a deep-seated hatred of C&W but the audience voted with their feet and took to the floor with deep silly joy, remaining there for the remaining acts of the festival - Backbeat Soundsystem, Acoustic Ladyland, and Melosa: the popular local 10-piece ska band with its usual quality portfolio of nu-reggae anthems to run on the spot to.

The undoubted stars of the night, if not the festival, were Bellatrix and The Boxettes - an all-female a capella quintent who were two songs into their set before I realised the bowel-trembling dubstep bassline was generated entirely by the beatboxing fifth vocalist. B&B revise your idea of music and give hope for the post-apocalypse future where there are no drum machines, and if there is any justice we will be seeing great things from them nationally in the near future.

In summary: Aeon's scope broadens each year without compromising its indie ethos. It remains an eclectic showcase of enthusiastic local talent, peppered with inspirational acts from further afield and under-girdled by solid, multi-genre DJing from its expanding party face. And a waterskiing crocodile.

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