Wot I did in my summer holidays (Pt 3)

Lost Village 18

To see the full gallery please click here: https://babycakesromero.com/photography/lost-village-18/

Lost Village 2nd time around although I was only there for one night before and so was great to go back and spend a bit more time there. Like Houghton it is also a great size and very manageable although they had upped the capacity a few thousand on last year, not that you could really notice. I’d had the good sense to bring a large umbrella. The heavens erupted at The Bureau of Lost just as we arrived on the friday, a sound system hidden in the woods. We very quickly made friends as a whole gang of guys who joined us underneath to shield from the rain. We had been there literally minutes and we were being hugged and offered all manner of stuff by this lovely lot who were clearly off their head. It was a very warm welcome and summed up how friendly everyone was (induced or otherwise) throughout the weekend.

 

What I hadn’t realised about LV last time was that a lot are there for the food and there was even a pop up Dishoom, (a very trendy restaurant in London apparently) and was slightly stunned to see a very large queue of people trying to get in. I also saw joggers for the first time at a festival (see full gallery) which left me fairly slack-jawed. They have a wide variety of stuff on offer at LV including stand-up, theatre and art installations. What sadly they don’t provide (and this was my main gripe of the weekend) is any entertainment past 1am. I couldn’t actually believe it when someone told me. A festival that finishes at 1pm? Is that even a festival? All the acts finish  at this inordinately early hour and after this moment there is only one tent open, the Hay bale tent, where you can dane to a Spotify playlist. That doesn’t sound very enticing but when there is literally nothing else on, you would be amazed what you will tolerate.

It actually sounded like it was being selected from someone’s phone as some tracks were occasionally cut short as they would be at a house party with nothing but the machinations of a wasted phone user as dj. We actually went round the tent, which was full to the brim with about 2000 people, looking for someone with a phone making the decisions on what these festival revellers should be dancing to. Whoever it was went for the big hitters, and almost everything played was a banging hit from now or yesteryear. And the crowd went suitably nuts to every cheesy tune that came their way, not caring who or how they were getting them, as you can see in this short video…

LINK: https://youtu.be/XPtxrlZT6MQ

I am not blaming the organisers as they are restricted to a curfew which just seems so sad. There is, according to a steward, very little going on in this part of the country so you would think local residents would be ok with a wee bit of noise pollution for one weekend a year. Clearly not. It just bothers me in society that ‘quiet’ always wins. Its a shame as Lost Village is a really cool little festival and would definitely be up for returning…I might just now have the foresight to bring a loaded up device with a speaker to be able to listen to some tunes in the later hours rather than crowd round a poorly connected iPhone, desperately trying to squeeze out an entire track on the streaming bandwidth available in the middle of a field whilst everyone else is trying to do the same.

Wot I did in my summer holidays Part 4

Lost Village

 

 

I was only at Lost Village for one night but also thought it was a great lil festival, great crowd, perfect size, good vibes. Like Houghton, it was a small boutiquey event with a focus on delivering an enjoyable hassle free experience. Had been a bit gutted about not making Glasto this year but having been to a few smaller festivals this summer instead rather than one big monster event I have come to realise that you get most of the fun you woulda and not that much aggro. Whenever I go to Glastonbury I generally miss most of the bands on the line-up anyway so its not like being at a smaller event is much different. Generally speaking you get wasted and dance in a field to amplified music with like-minded people. All components need to be of top quality for maximum enjoyment but there is not necessarily an increase in pleasure the bigger the festival. Often the opposite…

Why smaller festivals work is that it is much easier to mingle and interact with the other punters which is half the fun and if you lose the people you are with, it isn’t insanely hard to find them again. This is a big bonus. The people at Lost Village were great and very friendly and laid back and definitely up for the craic. (irish speak for ‘avin it large). Not that I am done with big festivals completely, I just really enjoyed all the little ‘uns I did this year…and weirdly I did not miss hiking in the mud for an hour only to arrive for the last song of the act I had traipsed halfway across site to see…

All the photographs above are of crowds joyfully rocking out to the Dewaele brothers, first as Soulwax and then as 2manydjs.