overview

Friday the 16th of May. A warm smell of human grease, incense and failed organic deodorant wafted encouragingly around me as I piled into the Big Lemon Bus: a groaning hippy wagon powered by used chip fat, an eco-friendly passage to the festival subsidised by the organisers. A good idea on two levels, in keeping with the green not-for-profit philosophy of Firegathering and a hell of a good way to get fired up with all the other over-excited city folk with leaves and friends and drugs on the brain - civil servants, bar girls and librarians with flowers in their hair and paint smeared across their faces. We're packed down the aisle, rucksacks piled on laps. An insurance clerk beside me re-jigs the firesticks on his lap.

The key to Firegathering's unique atmosphere, even as a small festival, is the sense of unity that's enforced everywhere. The large fire in the main field that gives the festival its name is the only one allowed on site, and in the light but cold sweeping rain and little gusts of wind that made of the majority of the weather this year, when you weren't producing your own heat in the main tent, huddling around the fire with all your fellow festies was a necessary option. I can recall a particular moment late on the Saturday night, when many chose to abandon all pretence and stare open mouthed into the fire, dribbling slightly, for long tracts of time, some comment drifted over my head from out of the darkness. 'These people are all fucked'.

I chose to take this remark in a certain sense, and had a vision of a large group of strangers heading blindly towards certain doom, together, in unison. Possibly the air of doom I detected at that moment came from the drugs and the darkness, I don't know. I do know that being insulted as a group is a lot more satisfying than being insulted alone.

But back to the beginning.

The Resonators took on the daunting task of opening the festival, an eight piece Ska/reggae troupe who took full advantage of the restlessness and curiosity of the initial waves of people. The lead female vocals were sweet and powerful, with an effortless charisma that they used to gently direct the mood of the swaying crowd. At one point they playfully bought the tempo down to the extent that we were dancing in slow mo, bouncing and writhing as a whole. The next moment, smiling warmly all the time, she boomed skankathon and there was knees and dust everywhere. The transition from mellow to frantic was smooth, and a positive and unhurried tone characterised the whole set. A good start.

One of the best acts of the Friday was the two piece, Pj Harvey-esque Little Fish. They made a fantastic team, the strange willowy punk-spirited singer looking like everyone's ideal big sister and throwing out physical and vocal theatrics to tremendous effect, and the shaven blokish drummer with attitude all over his face, backing her up. She shrieked like a demon and howled like an angel. Her vocals were powerfully deep and at the same time beautifully melodic. The only minor bugbear was the song 'come to my room', the girly, cheesy lyrics of which belied her impressively powerful presence and obvious complexity. Having said that, I still want to be her.

Saturday was (joy!) fancy dress day. As everybody knows, fancy dress is the saviour of the social retard, providing a talking point for even us shyest of folk. There were a lot of indians for some reason. My personal favourite, a man Smokey and the bandit from the waist down and time bandits from the waist up, with a grotesquely realistic smile painted over his face. Also, you gotta love kids dressed as camels, if only for the alliteration. When everyone's dressed like a fool, running round, grinning at one an other as if to say 'gaffaw... don't we all look silly?' there's a lot more integration, institutionalization into the mood and general scope for things to get under way. Or possibly it felt like that to me, because my very favourite band was playing Saturday night, and for me, that’s where everything was building. As a disclaimer to the following review, it comes burbling from the heart of a self confessed groupie, but I will try to scavenge some cool perspective.

Turning Green are a London/Brighton based group of eager to please and energetic scamps and geniusi with small, growing, dedicated fan base. Their music bounds and swings unrestrainedly in a punkish, funkish pop/rock way and is marked by beautifully well coordinated acapella. Playing live is their greatest strength as their worship of the audience is matched only by the audiences worship of them. (I'd like to think I wasn't the only one gripping the rail screaming 'yes! yes! yeeeees!!!'). They constantly interact with the crowd, and lend it their wild abandon. This makes them a great festival band, and their unrestrained performance needs to be enjoyed as messily and joyfully as possible. I have to say, I didn't personally stumble off to the Jacuzzi in the early hours, but one can only imagine the scene....

I rounded the weekend off with a spot of Tai Chi, just to enter into the spirit of the thing, which took place in the orchard. Workshops at festivals occasionally gnaw at my diminished attention span, but the calm structuredness of the Tai Chi lesson was just what I needed to cool down before home time. The orchard itself is a lovely little corner of Firegathering, full of low hanging apple trees tied with ribbons and wind chimes. A typically romantic hippy nook which softens the edges of the mania involved with the main field. It served the same function as the yurt full of cushions and Jenga, and contributed to the slightly mellower atmosphere of the festival. It was the only sort of place you could really hear a man say 'Is it cool if I talk about this in the wider context of our relationship with the universe' and not snort rudely, but instead nod wisely, and think about which colour of ribbon you prefer.

I must mention the eco philosophy of the festival, as the impression is definitely given that somebody, somewhere has tried. The promotion of the green-theme is always going to invite a certain amount of self-righteousness (don't breathe the phrase 'middle class fad', don't even think it) but any element if hypocrisy, at least on the part of the organisers, was moot. I won't list what they did here, but efforts were made. A festival is like a small impermanent community, and the air of being at least partially civilized was comforting - one could say I got too drunk, I insulted, vomited over and manhandled my nearest and dearest, I smeared myself in mud and ran naked and raving through fields of children, but at least I recycled. And call me a festival wimp, but flush toilets were definitely a large bonus.

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