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Secret Garden Party 2008


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A truly original and brilliant festival. All sorts of amazing sights and performances.

Did anyone else catch The Correspondents at the Pagoda stage? Or the paint fight in

front of the main stage? Or the Ukelele Karaoke?

Definitely the most chilled out festival we have been to. We enjoyed the fact that there

weren't too many 'headline' acts. It meant we could relax and take our time to watch

the smaller tents which were much more fun.

Gutted that we couldn't swim in the lake this year. Apparenly some Health and Safety

Gestapo threatened to close the festival down if so much as a toe was dipped in the

water. Hence all the bored security staff around the bridge.

Weather very hot. Spent much of the time sat under the cold tap.

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Found this blog on the-fly.co.uk and thought I would share it with a wider audience.

After having spent the last week trying (and failing) to get any sense out of the Secret Garden Party’s website as regards directions, line-ups and other such important information, I spent my time exploring the map of the festival site with my mouse, making some pirates dance and shoot cannonballs out of a galleon and making a crowd wave in front of a stage shaped like an open mouth of a toothy monster. “This is quite snazzy”, I thought. “But I bet it won’t be anything like this.” In fact I thought it would probably be a bit crap as the actual band line-up left little to get excited about (The Hoosiers).

So on Saturday I embarked on my adventure to Cambridgeshire and quickly found out why it was called the Secret Garden Party: it is impossible to find the bloody place. After driving around what felt like the whole of the county and finding no signs whatsoever, some friendly old bus drivers kindly directed me to the right village where I found an entourage of hooray Henrys in sports cars pulled up in a lay-by who kindly allowed me to follow them to the site.

I get to the box office to find I am not on the press list. Great news. Luckily, past experience has taught me to print off emails in which people promise you things, so I wave my pieces of paper around for a bit until a green press pass is produced.

I stagger through two fields on the way to the campsite, during which I am jeered on by the residents who can see I’m struggling in the heat, one man even feels the need to do this via a megaphone, which is nice.

I shove my tent up in a haphazard manner and bend all my tent pegs trying to poke them into the solid ground and then go and explore the site. It soon becomes clear that the grounds are in fact as exciting as the website suggests and I find myself feeling like Alice In Wonderland as I come across giant tree houses, stages in the mouths of monsters, mud wrestling pools and, lo and behold, a pirate galleon in the middle of the lake which people are getting to via punts, canoes and dingys.

There are no laptops or festival programs in the press tent, or in fact anywhere, there are however three fridges full of free beer, so I resign myself to the fact I’m just going to have to get drunk and probably miss all the bands I came to see.

I settle in the shade to watch this shower called The Asteroids Galaxy Tour who are about as dire as the name suggests, a blonde Ting Tings Katie White wannabe is warbling her way through 45 minutes of humdrum jazz pop. Excitement follows though when the compere stages a world record attempt at the world’s largest spooning session, punters dash to the grass in front of the stage to embrace total strangers in a long winding snake of lovers’ spoonage. By this point it has become clear that this weekend is not going to be about the music, it’s going to be about strange happenings and dressing up like a loony – and boy do the people of the Secret Garden know how to do just that, just a few examples include glitter ball head man, bubble wrap monster, a few cone heads, a wedding party of foxes, a herd of zebras who reside in ‘Zebra World’ and a man driving an inflatable car in a thong which goes up over his shoulders and has a big tuft of fake public hair stuffed down the front.

Next up are my Brighton friends Sweet Sweet Lies who manage to gather quite crowd and start off a bit of waltzing at the Come And Play stage. Their dark, melancholic and bleak folk songs prove popular with the arty crowd who lap up songs such as ‘No One Will Love You Like I Will’ and ‘Capital Of Iceland’.

Night falls, the temperature drops, weird creatures emerge from the campsites, and the Secret Garden Party comes alive. We go to see Kissy Sell Out in the dance tent but we only manage to endure one number until the heat, and the fact that it’s absolute manufactured drivel, drives us away proving that Kissy is indeed, a sell out. We find refuge and what is to be the musical highlight of the weekend in the form of Micachu at Where The Wild Things Are. This girl is the definition of ironic 80’s geek cool. She has frizzy hair, NHS glasses and sings with a strange snarl of the lip al la Elvis. Amazingly disjointed and deranged songs such as ‘Curly Teeth’ follow and The Fly can soon be found dancing down the front with a gaggle of Edwardian prostitutes in wigs with blacked out teeth who are drinking vodka from the spouts of silver teapots. As you do. The set ends with an interesting number, played out with the help of a live Hoover which is sung into on stage (odd, but it actually sounds amazing), this sends the crowd into a fury and results in me getting poked in the eye by something which is stuck in one of the hookers wigs.

Then we emerge from the tent and are greeted with the most incredible scene I have ever seen at a festival EVER. Two flaming arrows are fired at the pirate ship and it bursts into flames on the middle of the lake (we trust it has previously been cleared of the dancing people). Hundreds of fire dancers and breathers appear on the edges of the lake and about five hundred lanterns are released into the air right before an explosion of fireworks erupts from the belly of the galleon.

We yelp in delight and make our way through the carnage to the main stage where the notorious Grace Jones is about to appear, surprisingly we are permitted to hang about backstage and await the late arrival of Ms Jones in her big 4x4 which drops her about half an inch from the stage. She certainly has the air of a superstar and dons a massive purple wig/spring thing in which she makes her entrance. A lengthy set follows, with old classics such as ‘Nightclubbing’ and ‘Slave To The Rhythm’ played out to the biggest crowd of the weekend in her classic psychedelic reggae style. Then a weird thing happens, old Jonesy decides to whip her kit off and finish the rest of the set in nothing but a corset and a thong, there can’t be many 60 year olds, or in fact many 20 year olds, who can get away with that but Grace manages to pull it off. She then pulls a few members of the crowd up on stage with her, one of which is our friend Brenda who is one of the zebra people to help her finish her set. After that we get a bit bored (and jealous) and wander off in search of more exciting pursuits such as drinking Absinthe in the Absinthe Lair and sampling some truffles served up by a burlesque lady in the Chocolate Harlot’s Boudoir, we also find the time to do some ironic hippy dancing in the equivalent of the ambient tent and have countless amusing conversations with all manner of people who lost their brains somewhere at Glastonbury and are yet to retrieve them.

At about 3am it all gets a bit too much and a combination of sunstroke and exhaustion drags me back to my humble resides. This has been the most fantastical festival I have ever been to, also the most lawless and laid back. What the line-up is lacking in, the sheer creativity and the imagination of the organisers makes up for, this is a giant playground for adults where you can whole-heartedly dive down the rabbit hole and not be disappointed at what you find. A few signposts here and there and a few more big names on the bill to get excited about will make the Secret Garden Party the new old Glastonbury. The Fly can’t wait till next year and just hope health and safety, the police and the commercial bigots don’t get there before us.

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That does it - I'm *definitely* going next year! I had a stewarding place this year but had to turn it down due to work crap. Next year, f**k em all, I'm going! ;)
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So....third time and get more out of it every year, no problems getting through the gates at 3pm thursday - no bag search - just a friendly welcome. Lots of space to set up camp - and from what i saw there was the perfect amount of space for 6,000 people.

Reading facebook groups a few 'stalwarts' had problems with security, amount of people, and well compelled to leave on Saturday. I felt/saw no problems along these lines, and i guess some people are upset it has become as successful as it is. But i hope it doesn't get bigger - but wld understand if it did.

Apparently one guy was heavily beaten up by security at 6am sunday near fish seeks bicycle, and taken away - but that's just hearsay.

Music wise Bonde de Role, The Whip, Fenech Soler, Autokratz, INFADELS, Late of the Pier, Alphabeat, The Correspondents, Beardyman, Esser, Wave Machines, Lykke Li, Alex Metric, were all great from what i remember! The music at the silent disco was a bit poor though.

Seemed to be less choice of food than normal on the music side of the lake, and the drinks price sldn't rise any more - though it looked like you cld bring booze in more easily this year.

Fantastic weather - though morning sleep was impossible! - Booking my early bird ticket this month when they go on sale!

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So....third time and get more out of it every year, no problems getting through the gates at 3pm thursday - no bag search - just a friendly welcome. Lots of space to set up camp - and from what i saw there was the perfect amount of space for 6,000 people.

Reading facebook groups a few 'stalwarts' had problems with security, amount of people, and well compelled to leave on Saturday. I felt/saw no problems along these lines, and i guess some people are upset it has become as successful as it is. But i hope it doesn't get bigger - but wld understand if it did.

Apparently one guy was heavily beaten up by security at 6am sunday near fish seeks bicycle, and taken away - but that's just hearsay.

Music wise Bonde de Role, The Whip, Fenech Soler, Autokratz, INFADELS, Late of the Pier, Alphabeat, The Correspondents, Beardyman, Esser, Wave Machines, Lykke Li, Alex Metric, were all great from what i remember! The music at the silent disco was a bit poor though.

Seemed to be less choice of food than normal on the music side of the lake, and the drinks price sldn't rise any more - though it looked like you cld bring booze in more easily this year.

Fantastic weather - though morning sleep was impossible! - Booking my early bird ticket this month when they go on sale!

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So....third time and get more out of it every year, no problems getting through the gates at 3pm thursday - no bag search - just a friendly welcome. Lots of space to set up camp - and from what i saw there was the perfect amount of space for 6,000 people.

Reading facebook groups a few 'stalwarts' had problems with security, amount of people, and well compelled to leave on Saturday. I felt/saw no problems along these lines, and i guess some people are upset it has become as successful as it is. But i hope it doesn't get bigger - but wld understand if it did.

Apparently one guy was heavily beaten up by security at 6am sunday near fish seeks bicycle, and taken away - but that's just hearsay.

Music wise Bonde de Role, The Whip, Fenech Soler, Autokratz, INFADELS, Late of the Pier, Alphabeat, The Correspondents, Beardyman, Esser, Wave Machines, Lykke Li, Alex Metric, were all great from what i remember! The music at the silent disco was a bit poor though.

Seemed to be less choice of food than normal on the music side of the lake, and the drinks price sldn't rise any more - though it looked like you cld bring booze in more easily this year.

Fantastic weather - though morning sleep was impossible! - Booking my early bird ticket this month when they go on sale!

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