like a fine malt Hydro Connect is improving with the years

Having been at many festivals throughout Europe and America during the last decade I struggle to think of a better location for a music festival. Surrounded by mountains and lochs with Inveraray castle in the centre of the site, Hydro Connect in beauty alone beats the standard large out of town festival site. Following a strong first festival in 2007 with the only dampener being the rain could the festival repeat its appeal in 2008?



After the long walk from the car park and what some of my friends are now calling the 'hill of death' my initial impression was good with the site appearing to shrink slightly cutting down the walk from one end to the other. There is no doubt the compactness of it all adds to its appeal. Unlike T where you are faced with quite a hike from one end of the festival to the other, a five minute walk takes you from the main Oyster Stage to the Guitars and other Machines stage. As main stages go the Oyster stage is set on a natural slope towards the action meaning most folks in the crowd should get a good view from the whole arena. Compare that to your average festival where if you are under 6 foot all you are going to see from further that ten meters away is the person in front of you. Add to this the fact that the stage is surrounded by large trees, mountains and mist and you've got quite a setting for some haunting Icelandic music (more later).

A wee trip away is the aptly named Guitars and other Machines stage which even in the hype drawn gatherings of Glasvegas never seemed to get so busy that you could not get a good view. It's again surrounded by scenery. Look deeper and there's a lot more music to be found throughout the site. Your sound stage is a compact wee fellow tucked between the Hydro welly washer area and neatly designed as a beer garden for the whisky tent. With a selection of Scotland's up and coming featuring on this stage it offered a chance to catch a glimpse of the stars of tomorrow at close range.

The Unknown Pleasures tent is located in a large circus style big top and hosted a range of acts from DJ's such as Decimal live, alternative gems of the music market such as Beardyman, and burlesque institution Club Noir. A real gem of a selection. Talking of up and coming the festival dedicated another two stages to new music with Kopparberg One big tree hosting some fine acts over the weekend and The Speak easy cafe at the side of the Guitars stage hosting a variety of acoustic sets from around the UK. You've got to look the headliners at this festival - it is aimed at an alternative market to the mainstream. Some say the line up was not as strong as year one. At the top end of the scale that may be an argument worth making but in overall terms there were so many gems of music in the tents of Speak easy and Kopparberg to fill the pants of any genuine music fan.

One of the main things that made this festival was the people attending. On the whole there was a good selection of ages from the very young to the very old with many in their late 20's and centred on a 30's and 40's crowd. The Bucky swilling urinating anywhere yobs who gather at most large festivals didn't bother to go to Connect and were not missed. In their place were visitors from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, mainland Europe and England. It was on the whole a really good natured crowd, there to enjoy the music and have a good time.

Music aside, this festival presents a step out of the norm in food and other activities. The food was of such good quality that for the first time I'm doing a separate food review and I'm not talking about soggy chips and tasteless bean burgers that makes up my usual festival nosh. Quite simply the food at this festival is so scrummy that they could market the place to true foodies. Leaving aside the Argyle food tent which I will get to in a minute the main food in this festival stood out from the norm. With genuine Caribbean goat curry on offer or for the more traditional Leicestershire Pork sausage rolls drenched in hot English mustard this place was a food fest.

Although I personally don't rate the pear cider (it's perry if it's pear - Ed) provided by the main drink sponsor the whole festival experience is a wee bit different and out of the norm. Not being a pear cider connoisseur it did not take me long to track down the Fyne Ales bar where a large range of ales were served up by Tuggie and the crew. Now that beats Carling or Tenants any day of the week.

Suitably inebriated I followed my nose into what turned out to be Valhalla of festival food. The large marquee run by a collection of local farmers under the branding of Foods from Argyle can simply be classed as inspirational festival nosh that will change the face of festival food for the future. For the traditional palate you won't beat the ample helpings of roast beef sandwiches or traditional stovies flavoured by rosemary. For the veggies the flavourings in the chickpea and butter nut squash curry was to die for. And for afters Missy Muggies sticky toffee pudding was, as a sticky toffee pudding lover, the best I've tasted in my life.

For drinkers who wanted something different, there was a variety of drinking dens from the Red Bull sponsored enchanted forest which really came alive at night when the multi coloured flood lights magically lit the large trees surrounding the bar. Picture that someone had thrown a large architecturally designed tarpaulin over part of a forest, wood chipped the floor, added a bar, live DJ sets and loads of Red Bull inspired cocktails and jammed it with punters at 12 noon. Now you're talking, you can almost hear the place jumping.

Alternatively, but no less cool, the Havana Club bar located in a big red open sided tent took the drinker far away from rain soaked Scotland and placed them deep into Latin America. Maybe it was that the majority of the bar staff were true Latinos or the fact that at £4.50 the trendy drink of the minute Mojitos were not badly priced, but this place was busy from dusk onwards until kick out time at 2am. For more of a Scottish traditional drink there is a tent at this festival wholly dedicated to Malt whisky. Run by some of the country's experts in the field of malt it is not an urban tale that if you go into the tent, buy your chosen malt and down it in one the chances are the owner will sell you another one and teach you how to drink it properly. In my case that means without ice and savouring the flavour of the malt on my tongue. One second for each year of the malt. Yup, you learn something in life every day.

After a night partying a great way to recover was by sipping a latte in the Glasgow Herald sponsored Speakeasy cafe. As I already mentioned the cafe which offered comfy sofas and live acoustic sets was a great place to hang out. Elsewhere on the site The Rest and be Thankful spa offered a whole range of treatments from head massage to manicure, again a step out of your normal festival experience. The main festival sponsors, Hydro Electric, provided an interactive learning area which centred on green issues effecting out planet. Building on that Green theme the main campsite featured a green cycle powered shower, which focused the minds on green energy.



The campsite itself had some improvements on last year with more toilets and better showering facilities. This is still an area that the organisers could focus their energies on improving with complaints relating to lack of toilets and boggy campsites the main grumps from the campers. The fact that the festival site had more rainfall during the build up to the festival than the whole of New Orleans suffered in the recent Hurricane Gustav will not have helped preparations; however this is one of the areas that must be improved upon to guarantee the long term viability of the festival site. I am sure that like the fine whisky that comes from these parts the facilities will evolve as time goes on with improvements being made from year to year. Get used to the walk into this site; it's not going to vanish overnight.

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