music overview

It’s a gentle start to the proceedings, the tent is up and all the kit has crossed the great divide of the arena and everyone else has got their tents up, a few beers have been opened and after a rest we all wander down to the beer tent.

Checking the programme reveals that tonight I will be mostly spending the night at the BIG TOP which is handy as Levellers Acoustic are opening the show. The tent is packed and amazingly everyone knows all the words. ‘Dead Man’s Shilling’ turns out to be a surprise highlight in a set full of familiar favourites. It’s a smashing start to the festival and we’re making new friends already.



I wander back to the main arena arriving too late for Passenger but manage to catch a little of Wire Daisies, I’m not overtly impressed with them, her vocal holds the attention but the sound of the band is a bit ‘adult contemporary’ so I wander back to the Big Top to see Mr Hudson and the Library who I caught briefly at Glastonbury, I hear most of the set and leave impressed, still singing ‘Bread and Roses’.

I decide to miss Ben's Brother opting instead for Dub Pistols who do a stormingly good set, dropping AC/DC into the mix at one point. Opening tinnies, giving us some banter and adding a horn section to the dub madness and generally creating a lads have a mad time and so do the audience crowd. Great choice of act by Beautiful Days they go down a storm and get the crowd up for it.

After all that sweaty leaping around the cleanly turned out Willy Mason in the Big Top is a different story. Sporting a proper band replete with a fiddler these days, the draw a reverent crowd, he’s not wearing his glasses and girls in the audience are going gooey. A nicely balanced set of old and new stuff is capped with ‘Oxygen’. It sounds as though much of the audience haven’t heard much of Willy before, he does well and wins over many new fans by the time he’s applauded offstage.



It’s warm outside and there’s lots of people spilling out from the Fiddler’s Elbow, the tavern tent beside the top. It’s dry and warm, a perfect environment to take on board a few ciders before Skaville UK and having seen them at Guilfest I knew what to expect. Fantastically tight 2-tone to skank about to, I leave them in full swing to take in a little of the main stage headliner KT Tunstall and notice (now it’s dark) the trash city street lights n flames. Wow! KT well she’s okay, well crafted songs and all that but Whirly Gig are on in the dance tent, so I bound off.

The light show is amazing and there’s a lovely vibe in the tent, the projected visuals are something else and it’s nice and loud, a robot drummer welcomes visitors and there’s shops, big squishy seating, lots of floaty site art and a bar with a great soundsystem going off in it. Outside the Bimble Inn and surrounding area are covered in an incredible lightshow and I’m tempted off down there to see a late night band before being distracted on the amble home to hang out at a fire until the late hours. Eventually heading to the tent as the rain gets harder.

Saturday:

A few hours kip and it’s still raining, but having forgotten to eat the night before I go in search of breakfast and happen to discover the loos are in a great condition. It’s still raining when I return, as food’s a bit sparse first thing in the morning and we sit under gazebos talking and waiting for the rain to cease or the music to start at midday.

The weather stops for The Days on main stage, but continues raining on and off most of the day. The Days are actually very excellent indie in a made for the mainstream way, watching them reminded me of watching The Feeling just before they broke big, one to watch for next summer.

Zombie Met Girl are hard fast old school punk rock, and I’d have liked to have stayed longer than their two songs but I had to head off to see Hobo Jones and Junkyard Dogs - the festie heroes of the hour – who are great entertainment and are totally amazed to have packed the tent! Better in my book than Tea with Howard Marks which is where all my friends had gone.

I wander around the kids’ field, it’s alive with frenetic energy and there’s loads of performers about and even a bloke wandering around with a banana phone. Despite the damp conditions the atmosphere is lovely, shame it’s not sunny or I’m sure there’d be more of yesterday’s wrestling, full size lego dancers and giant musical speaker shells on wheels! There seems to be less wandering performers this year (due to the mud?)- the elwire men were about last night though and the giant punk, there’s a copper on stilts, lovely site art too - flags, lights, flying balls, hammocks and no end of colourful people.

Back at the main stage, the line up is such that I’m not intending to move for a while DeVotchKa have drawn a crowd to hear their own version of that sound that Gogol Bordello have perfected mixing burlesque, with folk instruments and they throw a bit of Goth in the mix with Siouxsie and the Banshees covers. I’m rather surprised to hear they’re actually from the USA I was expecting it to be The Ukraine. Liked their sound though, although it was a bit bizarre!



Radical Dance Faction returned to the festival this year to continue their revival, playing songs from their earlier incarnations in the main and less from their ‘Borderline Cases/Hot on the Wire’ era. With Steve Swann coming more to the fore on vocal duties and Chris canning half a dozen ciggies and cadging a lighter in the process. It’s more dub driven and good none the less, but personally I preferred the set list from last year and more of Chris’ poetry.



Here we go again! Anyone who’s seen 3 Daft Monkeys this year, knows this is their year, they positively shine. A brilliant set overflowing with great dance tunes. And how do just three of them kick up such a storm? New album and EP beckons and 3DM are looking to be future headliners!

One of our friends hates Morris Dancers, so drawing a few baby wipes as hankies we dance about to the music of Bellowhead, perfect music for fake Morris Men. But it’s thirsty work so I make for the bar which offers Otter Ales, Tricky (and other draughts) and Aspells cider, plus lagers and spirits all terrifically well priced. Only thing is there’s a PA inside so I don’t actually get to hear much of Spiers and Boden and Co. – Ah well I saw them at Glastonbury and they were amazing that night.



Remembering I have to eat I check out the food, well The Furnace wins the best food at a festie all summer award - delicious! But there were many other options like pie, wedges, pizza, Mexican, paella, real sausage, Thai, felafals, chocolate cones and prices more reasonable than anywhere else and a great gourmet boulevard by the Big Top which happens to have McDermott’s 2 Hours who are doing Levellers songs, some say they were Nick Burbridge’s first and their extended celt/folk fiddle fuelled reels are marvellous. If you get a chance see them they’re blindin’ live.

I race back through the arena for the mighty Dreadzone for a right excellent skank as the skies almost clear. They’ve really found their form and the set’s even tighter than last week’s at Endorse It although much shorter. They get the whole place jumpin’ From the front barrier to the back of the arena – surely they ought to have headlined? They were just superb!

Cheap smokes are available from a VW Camper as I get to Subgiant, more groovy visuals and a busy tent as they kick off. I only notice how quiet it is in the tent when I realise I’m able to talk to my daughter on the phone. She’s gone back to the tent to find it burgled and is upset. So here ends my Saturday, fortunately we’re camped close to the Dance Tent so I can just hear Subgiant and Rennie Pilgrim/Hybrid.

I really wanted to see Gogol Bordello at Beautiful Days, so much so I deliberately didn’t watch them when I had the opportunity, from our tent it sounded flat and muted. I’m sure down the front it was chaotically awesome. I couldn’t even use my back up plan of seeing local boys Show of Hands headline the Big Top.

Nor do I get to see that night’s light show at the Bimble Inn but Vogue Gyratory sound amazing and there’s fireworks late on to bring some small comfort! Damn thieves and rain!

Sunday:

Least it’s stops raining but it’s now much muddier and the access to the arena for us passed the Dance tent is treacherous. I have to decide not to risk it later to see Trash City Soundsystem and Guilty Pleasures.

I walk passed the main stage where Flipron are vocalising the bizarre and it’s all weirdly enjoyable and interesting speed Cockney rap and Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics! Will make sure I catch them again next time they’re playing a festival near me. Onward to the institution that is The Fabulous Good Time Party Boys doing their usual entertainment to make us smile and sing, but the audience were flat this year compared to the energy of previous years. All the same the Fabbies are great entertainment and ‘Carbon Jackboot Print’ makes a good point about the hypocrisy of the Al Gore concerts and I do like the format of it. Although Mark Chadwick in a ginger wig and pink dress is a bit of a shock!

Hey Negrita are a band I’ve never heard of before, but they are my find of the festival! Top drawer musicians and catchy dark lyrics from these alt country English lads who create amazing blues and harmonica with a black edge. I’ve put all their back catalogue on my Christmas list. They toured with Alabama 3 and even have a song about how tough it was to survive on the road with them. Great tunes, see them if you can.

Once in the arena a detour to the Pussy Parlure for bingo karaoke before watching an impromptu busk by Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs at Madiccy’s place.

Babyhead are entertaining the crowd with their ska when I get back to watch Vincent Vincent and the Villains who are an old school offshoot of the Rumble Strips, the sort of rockabilly punk I reckon my dad would have made when letting off steam never realising he could have been way ahead of his time. They sound slightly 50s traditional but if they’d been around then Elvis would have gone off the rails far sooner, their sarcasm and wit is pure noughties.



Arrrghhhhh big giant clash Back to the Planet vs Bill Bailey and as there’s a mass exodus for the bearded badger I remain at the main stage to watch my old time favourite band again for the second time this year. Nothing for 15 years and then two gigs in a week! They don’t disappoint, all the tunes plus Fil dressed as a pirate and a Fraggle guitar solo behind the head on an unsecure speaker stack. Plus energetic keyboards from Guy and all of us old enough to remember the words are having a terrific little dance down the front. They sure are still earzone friendly!

I meant to leave for Boney M, I mean the night before we could only remember five of their songs. It turns out we knew loads and the atmosphere was too good to leave to see Trash City Soundsystem. They seemed to be joking as the weather closed in and they said they wanted to take us to Jamaica, at the time being battered by a hurricane. And the best bit was dancing with my daughter to ‘Daddy Cool’.

The dancing continues with the excellent Easy Star All Stars who bring us Radiohead, Pink Floyd and their own material effortlessly blended into a huge reggae groove. I love both Radiohead and Pink Floyd, but found myself saying I preferred their version of Kharma Police to the original, must have been the clearing skies.



Jhonny Kalsi and the Afro Celt Soundsystem keep the quality of the music high, Sunday’s been an aural treat and the fusion of their sound combined with the rhythms and beats have all the multicoloured crowd in crazy wigs grooving around, it’s good to see so many people have joined in with the dressing up this year, especially after the weather.

Talking of which, it’s been dry for hours and stays dry throughout our hosts of the weekend’s set the mighty Levellers, who play a storming set of favourites and are really up for a party. They return not with Fil for ‘Dance Before the Storm’ but for a fiddle off with Seth Lakeman (he was here Friday went to V and came back) and Athene Roberts (3DM), woah what pace the boy Seth has – he’s like lightning! Above the stage with a grinning face fireworks explode and then the Levs’ moon explodes into sparks high above and it’s a fantastic moment.

The main bar’s still open and people are saying their goodbyes, Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs appear again for another busk and it’s been lovely. It’s not over yet though at some point I end up seeing a little of Misnoma in the Bimble amongst a colourful crowd in wigs! At some point I see friends set a lantern into the night sky, still later I’m singing songs beside a fire and at some point it starts raining. Typical, the last music I heard was a drunken hippy outside my tent. Other than that the music on offer was the best yet, hopefully the organisers will be able to top it next year! Thanks DMF for putting on such a talented bunch all weekend.

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