When I talk to people about Houghton I pretty much always say the same thing. It delivers on all fronts. Location is beautiful. Music curation is spot on. Crowd are super friendly. Perfect size. You might have noticed over the course of this week documenting the festival that I haven’t really had a bad thing to say about it and that’s because I don’t. Yes it was crazy hot so the ground was super dry which meant the site became a bit of a dust bowl but that’s not the fault of the organisers (you could blame those responsible for climate change but mebbe let’s not go there now shall we?)
Where the festival excels for me is the carefully curated line-up. It feels like djs are booked because they are great djs and not just because their name can sell tickets. And they are given good chunky sets, sometimes 3-4hours so they can really get into the groove and do their thing and take the crowd on a journey. Just like the good ole days. The reason for this due care and attention is that Houghton has a dj at it’s helm and so it is music first above and beyond everything else and that always makes for the best festivals in my book. And no not all festivals seem to prioritise the music as the most important factor. For some it’s the food or the fancy dress (yes Bestival we are talking about you) which is refreshingly in short supply at Houghton. People are there for the tunes. And you won’t really hear a bad tune all weekend. And it’s not all just beats. There is a wide range of music on offer, all dance music but genre wise it is right across the board.
Over the course of the weekend we heard everything from funk to jazz, afrobeat, happy/acid/hard house, 80s/90s dance classics, disco, broken beats, all techno variants and there was even some 50s rock ‘n’roll and 60s soul provided courtesy of my alternate existence with my partner in crime as dj duo Double Agent 7. Having been a punter for the first two years was a joy to have our vintage sounds be part of the musical proceedings. When we play at festivals we are normally one of the few playing vinyl but I have never seen so many djs playing records which was very refreshing, altho all of ours did get caked in a fine layer of dust. Still was absolutely worth it.
And so I don’t really have much more to add other than to show you loads of pictures of people having a great time which tells you all you need to know. These were all taken at Derren Smart main stage during Optimo’s epic gig on the friday afternoon which was probably my favourite set of the weekend. Everyone was already in the groove and up for a major party and the atmosphere was amazing. As you can see it’s just a ton of people having a ton of fun. For me it just encapsulated the joy and the freewheelin anything goes attitude that sums up Houghton completely. They played such a variety of tunes but there was this beautiful line throughout and the crowd stayed on board for the whole journey.
We had all waited 3 years for Houghton to return but it was oh so worth it. Roll on 2023!
(p.s soz very late again today. was finding it difficult to cut down the shots and as you can see I haven’t done that well as there are loads but when you see so much happiness captured it’s difficult to cull them down)
Houghton is a festival but it was born out of club culture so it has a slightly different feel to it. As it is created and curated by Craig Richards of Fabric fame it is dj driven which means that even though it is outdoors and in the middle of a countryside it still has this vibe like you are deep in the heart of clubland.
The warehouse feels exactly like a umm warehouse and you could very easily forgive yourself for thinking you were in some rave on the outskirts of East London. And that is no accident. This is immersive fantasy clubbing at its best. And you won’t need an uber to get you out of here either. Just a short stroll back to your tent, not that you will ever want to go there because Houghton never stops. So why should you?
Tantrum is another stage at Houghton which despite being a large open tent also feels like a club. The man you can see at the decks through the mist is Craig Richards himself. You might notice over the course of these shots this week that I have not taken hardly any of the djs. It’s just because I always get locked into the crowd and I believe the story is better told in showing the effect their music generates rather than a shot of them staring down at the decks.
And finally here are some shots from the Quarry which is a huge open umm quarry and is basically a massive rave all in its own right. The quarry is the only place you have to queue up to get into on site and there is always a large line of people itching to get in. I was able to skip to the front thanks to my trusty press pass. The queue might be a drag but it does add to the excitement and once through the gates everyone is doubley delighted to make it into this very large raver’s playground and as it goes on right through the night you can lose a bit of time in line and no biggie.
This gallery is dedicated to the glories of Glasto and the insane amount of innovative large scale production that goes into creating what is essentially Disneyland for wasted adults. As you wander around the gi-normous site at night you can barely turn a corner without finding some captivating bit of eye candy which will no doubt keep you occupied for hours whilst derailing you from your intended destination. Hooking up with friends? Going to see your favourite dj? Trying to find a loo that doesn’t look like an alien exploded inside it? No Chance. All plans evaporate into the ether as you indulge your child like curiosity and your adult like intoxication. Glasto is a tripper’s paradise and a highly stimulating sensory experience like no other. Oh, and I think they have some bands there too…
It was obviously greatly missed this year by its regular attendees who swear by it as not only the ultimate festival but the ultimate antidote to regimented sensible city living. And so hopefully these shots will keep the Glasto flame alive in your minds until we can all be there again…
For the next 10 posts I will be showcasing a new print
series entitled “My Neon Noir Nights” (I know I normally take out the vowels
but it wouldn’t have made any sense ;) These are all shots that I have taken
whilst engaged in and documenting music based fun fuelled nocturnal activities.
Me and my camera have a symbiotic relationship so it somehow
manages to capture the essence of my own experience. The camera never lies apparently
and these pictures are indeed an honest depiction of how it looked and felt at
the time…which was mostly mashed and blurry with intense colours, a barrage of
lights, rushes of joy inside an amorphous dancing blob monster…well that’s
how I don’t remember it anyways ;) How is my camera able to do this? I have no
idea. I’m just glad it can…
So here comes the math…10 galleries, 10 prints in each gallery, 10 copies of each print = 100 shots at £100 a pop for each limited edition A3 print (420x297mm approx) which is not only 50% off the normal price (offer ends 15th dec) but also £30 of each sale will go to https://thefelixproject.org/ who are sourcing food that would go to waste and delivering it to those who desperately need it in London – each 30 quid will generate a whopping 183 meals. So you get a print, 183 people get fed and I make a sale, that’s a win,win,win in my books.
We are in the midst of an economically devastating pandemic
for the financially fragile so if we can just help prop them up and sustain
them during this difficult period they will hopefully be able to survive until a
semblance of normality returns. But you could also cut out the middle man
(that’s me) and just make a donation to them if you don’t want a print. Not
that I’m trying to talk you out of a sale, just throwing it out there..
Crowd Surf
This first neon noir gallery is a selection of crowd shots all taken mid frenzy at gigs & festivals and show how a ton of individuals united by music can become one mass of positive energy with a thousand hands all reaching for the sky in jubilation…or ‘larging it up’ as it is also known.
Trump with breasts swinging a plastic chicken is maybe not the best thing to see when you’re wasted..instant trauma and this was in the healing fields…
The slogans have spoken
Some people went to extreme lengths to not get split up in the crowds
I cannot tell you how many times I saw these scenarios around site at Glastochella
I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was actually at a Rosalia gig
The Brass Funkies at Funkingham Palace – they were superb and 1 of 3 brass bands we saw which were the highlight of our Glasto
The man with the bunny ears applauds the people who were dumb enough to queue up for 1hr + to get into the rabbit hole
Meanwhile The Bimble Inn gets rollin…
Superb brass band No. 2: Das Brass
We marched all over site on Friday and even though it had seemed packed uptil that point the crowds seemed to have doubled since the day before. Dealing with the mob in downtown Glasto (around the main stages) is pretty full on and not for the feint hearted. It’s a slog and you see lots of people who seem completely overwhelmed by the scale of it all and the amount of folk they have to fend through to get to their chosen destination. This is the bit they do not see on the TV.
Every time I mentioned that I was going to Glasto or that have just been to Glasto, the response is always the same…”Oh, I’ ve always wanted to go there. I would like to see it, just once”. It has become one of those bucket list things like the northern lights or Machu Picchu. IT is now something everyone wants to experience but it is definitely not for everyone. Not at all. It is an extreme event, an endurance test and ideally you need to be pretty wasted pretty much all of the time to deal with it.
Glasto used to be full of mostly munters and musos, party people who are willing to do what is necessary. These days you tend to get a lot more tourists who are there to see the spectacle rather than necessarily participate in it in this way. This has changed the feel of the festival considerably and it now feels different to how it did. Not that anyone doesn’t deserve to be there or can’t do it how they want to do it. Glasto should be anything but exclusive, everyone is welcome but it has altered the vibe.
it used to be mainly heavy duty hedonists that was attracted to Glasto which created a certain atmosphere. In the current era, pretty much everyone and their grandma now want to go to Glasto. So as a result, it sells out in half an hour so it basically boils down to who has the fastest broadband is who gets to go.
Its not about it getting more commercial because it had to move with the times and think that Emily Eavis has done a magnificent job of transforming it and making it relevant to a new generation by diversifying the acts which has successfully diversified the crowd. It needed to evolve to survive but it has also diluted the Glastonbury spirit, in my opinion and in my experience there. And I will come back to this concept of personal perspective and projection in my final Glasto post on Sat…(bonus blog day so I could cram it all in, aren’t you lucky?)
After our massive trek across site we came back to the Bimble Inn and had the best time out of anywhere we had been so decided we were going to park up in the Park (park pun intended) and have our fun without the aggro of having to get to it in the first place. This is often my policy in my home town and Glasto is actually a lot like London. Its massive and not just one place, its lots and lots of places sandwiched together and sometimes the best thing you can do is stay local and enjoy what is on offer on your doorstep…
By the time Thursday came along everything was in full swing, although so much had already happened I felt like I had been there a week and could barely remember anything before arriving on site..I was sure I used to have a life before Glasto, I just couldn’t quite recall what it was. The festival is so friggin enormous (the size of Sunderland apparently) and so all encompassing you forget there is anything beyond its walls…
New arrivals getting stuck in at The Bimble Inn, which was our favourite venue on site…great vibe, great bands. It is up on the hill in the ParK Area behind the big ribbon tower so people who are willing & wanting to steer away from the masses come here because they know there is a ton of fun to be had off the heavily beaten tracks of the main areas.
If you want to see your favourite band best get there early.
One crucial thing we learnt very early on and from previous years…if you see a crowd heading somewhere en masse go in the opposite direction and you can’t go far wrong. At normal festivals you would do the opposite but at Glasto there is so much cool shit to see it really doesn’t matter where you are. You do not need or want to follow the hoards. You wanna basically zig when they zag. Not everyone realises this as there are so many first timers who don’t really know where to go and you could see them marching around looking for the party not realising that they ARE the party. You make the fun wherever you are not where you were told to go. You have to be adventurous and explore. Glasto rewards the brave and the bold.
But sometimes you just can’t avoid ’em. Glasto has the same sized population as Iceland (the country not the supermarket altho apparently there was a supermarket on site selling sarnies in biodegradable packaging but we never found it) there were times when staying away from the crowd wasn’t possible. On Thursday the site was already rammed with folk there but none of the stages open till the following day so the whole site descends on block 9, unfair playground and Shangri-la, the late night venues scattered across the top end.
Block 9 – just like the apocalypse, but with mebbe less cannibalism and with mebbe more massive sound systems, amazing light shows and munted ravers…
Meet you by the guy with the big sword..
This is Icon the new stage which looked like a cross between 1984 & 2001. The movies not the years..although by the way a lot of the ravers were dressed you would have thought it was 1989 not 2019.
Meanwhile in the Rocket Lounge, vintage vibes rocked & rolled em…
Went to see our friend Gus aka Lazlo legezer in the early hours play a superb drum n bass set in the giant mouth tent (don’t know name) in the Unfair playground that had ’em spinin’ out…
ok, caption comp..the fella on the right has clearly said somit that didn’t go down too well with the girl on left. Please send your entries to babycakesromero@gmail.com and the winner will get a lifetime subscription to my blog…
On the way home we stumbled upon this gang. The girl on right was mc’ing really quite badly to a makeshift sound system in a shopping trolley pumping out D&B but we cheered her on cos that is the Glasto spirit. its all about supporting & rewarding effort…
We even managed to pop to the seaside on the way back, visiting Glastonbury on Sea: a giant seaside pier built out of steel. ‘Nuff said.
Back in the pod, the lucky folk who had bagged it were settling in for the night. Made mental note to try again next night..
You might have noticed by this point that all my pictures are mostly blurred with whacked out trippy light swirly affairs. All I can say is this is what my camera captured. The colours you see are the way it came out. The odd thing is that is mostly how it looked to me at the time. My retinas seem somehow, quite inexplicably, to be able to relay the information they are processing directly into my shutter – how that is possible I know not but am very happy my equipment and my warped sensory perception have this symbiotic connection. The ultimate fusion of man & machine. Or just a shaky hand with a long exposure. I prefer the first theory personally…
Tomorrow’s episode: Friday! When the festival actually officially begins and bands you have heard of start to play. The likes of which I fail to see as am ensconced elsewhere. People who watch Glasto on Tv can’t really comprehend that what they see is only a fraction of the festival, and in my opinion, not the best bit about it all. The greatest thing about Glasto is all the little tents, the bands and djs you have never heard of, the ones you stumble upon by accident…the ones you will never know their name but you will remember the moment forever…possibly. Ok, unlikely, but you lived it and that’s the main thing, right?
We arrived at Worthy Farm on Tuesday afternoon and sailed in. Well, we drove in actually, we weren’t in a boat. The hoards wouldn’t arrive till tomorrow so we were able to get on site easily and get our tent pitched up on the hill overlooking the Park area next to a tree. This turned out to be the greatest move we ever made as it meant we had shade every morning till midday which was a first. When its hot at a festival you normally have to vacate your tent by 8am as it becomes nuclear by then. By getting several hours kip in each night (well, each morning) meant we were able to give our bodies ‘n’ brains some rest which allowed us (just about) to get through an insanely full-on week of revelling in the biggest musical festival on the planet…
Rule No.1 – pack light.
Dr. Zoidberg warmly greeted us into the festival..
Glasto gets poolitcal. (one bad pun surely deserves another?)
Glasto tourists wait for the big crane at Arcadia to burst out its fireballs.
Clearly every crowd was catered for at Glasto…
The Unfair playground
On the first night we went to the crew bar at Shangri-la and it was going off. On a tuesday! Everyone was already flying high and raving hard. It was kicking off more than most festival at their peak. You realise that Glasto is actually a crew party, the punters are just along for the ride…and pay for it. There are around 50,000 people working at the festival and by the time the festival starts they have been going at it for about two weeks. It is their contribution and dedication to partying which makes Glasto begin in full swing at full tilt with no run up…
This guy above was jumping up and down repeatedly into a bin so that he could crush the cans inside. We never found out quite why unless he was just being duly diligent…or had a thing about cans. Or bins.
We found out on arrival that the whole of the festival was being used as a 5g testing site. No choice. No consent. This did not feel me with joy. More of that later on in week…
We saw many casualties even on the first night. At Glasto no-one knows how to hold back. It just isn’t an option.
Eco Car
This was a sculpture of a turtle that had been caught up in a ton of plastic and other human waste items. It was designed so you could hang out inside of it but highlighted the damage we are causing to the oceans and its inhabitants, which to be honest, was a bit of a buzz kill (laughing face with tears, crying face with tears)
It got chocka on the street real quick as it seemed that most of the people who stayed away on Sunday came on the Monday to make up for it. People were dancing from midday onwards and soon the party was jumping.
The street got so full at one point they had to block off the road. They had never done this before but it was pretty rammed so maybe it wasn’t such a terrible idea. Ultimately though, it created more problems than it solved as it generated a lot of tension between the police and the crowd that couldn’t get onto the street. Normally it just naturally dissapates as those that can’t handle it just leave. This has always worked in the past and so this interference in the natural flow of carnival just served to piss a lot of people off who in return were gave grief to the constables who would not let them through…
The police seem to be interfering in general more than they had in recent years which is strange to say the least as they worked out from previous experience that the more they muscled in the more more trouble it caused so why would they revert to a policy they know doesn’t work? The Carnival is a massive massive beast. You can’t control it, you just have to let it do its thing. You have to flow with it, not against it. It is always fine if you just leave it alone, but the cynic in me thinks they don’t want to leave it alone.
They want to stop it. They would rather it didn’t exist as its just a headache for them but they know they can’t just end it just like that so maybe they think if they show its a problem they can maybe persuade the authorities not to continue with it. They could never just stop it. There would be an outcry. But they can maybe slowly snuff it out. They already make it as hard as possible for people to get in and out, with what seems like a lot of unecesssary herding, but it feels like this is deliberate to deter as many people as possible. They are also making it harder for the sound systems to get permits and licenses and one casualty of this year was Gaza’s Rockin Blues which was not there this year, the first time in 42 years. They appear to be pricing people out of the market and this is how they will strip it down and shrink it. It is huge. Maybe it does need to be reduxed a bit but sadly it will be money that will dictate who stays and who goes which means that a lot of people, especially the local community who are such an integral part of it, might fall by the wayside.
99.9% of the crowd who attend carnival (apparently a million and a half people) are just there to have a good time and they have definitely come to the right place as the event excels at this. There is a tiny tiny minority who might be there for anti-social reasons but it is a minuscule fraction of the people present and this element exists at all times, in every society, bar none. It cannot be entirely eradicated. We are stuck with it but we don’t have to let it rule us. Over the course of the entire day on the Monday three people kicked off on the street and attempted to start a fight of some description. But they were all shut down by the security and peer pressure every time. They were contained, the music was stopped and each one was ejected from the proceedings. The crowd booed them. No-one was interested. No-one got involved. It was very professionally dealt with and that was that. Job Done. No police were involved. It was solved without them.
What I took from this is how easy it is for just one single person to derail everything, to harmony into discord and peace into violence. It is astounding when you watch so much joy stop in an instant just because one individual has a cobb on or can’t take their booze or whatever. I was however massively heartened to see how the majority of people just have no interest in violence in any shape or form. Most of us, nearly all of us, just want to hang out and have a good time. And we don’t care who you are as long as you want the same. And we refuse to let those few who do want to stir things up dictate how our lives are run. The party is going to continue, its just going to continue without you.
All in all it was another brilliant carnival and it is just such a massive celebration of life, pumped full of joy and is just incredibly uplifting and exciting. Dancing in the street in the middle of the day on a monday..when do you ever do that? Never. Which is why carnival must always exist. We need it. Human societies have always had annual events when everyone got wasted, partied for days and then went back to their lives, only to do it all again the following year. Maybe it was for harvest, or to worship the sun god or to celebrate whatever but it has been around since the beginning and it is integral to a happy existence. Every now and then you need to blow off some steam and so you might as well do it dancing your socks off at a sound system plonked down in the middle of the street.
I woke up at Midday (don’t judge) to see heavy duty rain pounding down on guys in flimsy waterproof(ish) jackets trying to put up the remainder of the disya jeneration sound system. On the street were a mere handful of very brave carnival attendees bracing the horrendous weather. It looked like it was going to be a washout. But ultimately you cannot crush the carnival spirit. It is more powerful than anything the skies can throw at it…
It stayed that way for hours and as a result it was probably the quietest carnival I have ever seen. The weather might have knocked out as many as quarter of a million people who stayed away as a result. You couldn’t blame em. It was grim but carnival was never for the feint-hearted. It is a magnificent experience but its a big beast and you have to be willing to get stuck in. Rain or shine. From the vibe on the street it was clear that this lot were not going to be put off by a bit of rain.
I did feel sorry for everyone who puts so much effort into putting it on and all the stall holders who are trying to make some money from the event, which is what the carnival was invented for in the first place. To give the local community an opportunity to earn some cash. After such a long hot summer it seemed a bit cruel but fuck all you can do about it. And soon enough, it didn’t matter. People were getting seriously stuck in to their daytime dance off. Normally the street is mainly used for walking along and here it was, as if my magic, transformed into a full-on street rave with a killer sound system with giant speaker stacks at either end of he road and around 2000 people jammed inbetween them all rockin out like their lives depended on it.
And just like in previous wet years the ones that didn’t shy away were the proper party people who aren’t staying away unless there is force 10 hurricane and even then they might still come along, just in heavier boots so they could still dance without getting whisked up in the air.
The rain did eventually subside and the latter part of the afternoon was dry and all those bold enough to come in the first place were amply rewarded by another spectacular block party from the Disya gang and Boiler Room.
The atmosphere was brilliant and nothing but good vibes all day. It was pretty full on as usual and everyone went for it big time despite it technically being a warm up day. You always get to the end of sunday and you suddenly realise, oh shit, this is just Part 1, we gotta do all this again tomorrow! Having just got back from Lost village, this marathon race weekend was just hotting up…
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…
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.
2nd time at Houghton and I have to say, two years in for both the festival and myself and I still have no complaints. We actually spent a lot of the car journey trying to find something that had been wrong over the weekend and the only thing anyone could muster was that a piece of lemon cake that had been consumed was a bit too ‘lemony’. You can’t really knock anything. The venue and location are stunning, the layout is very well thought out, the lighting, festival design and decorations are bang on, the people, both the crowd and the staff are all lovely, the music curation is second to none and it is a very very manageable size and just the right amount of people. And that is essentially all the ingredients of a great festival. Job done.
Even at festivals I have really enjoyed I generally still have a few gripes (see tmrrow’s post) but Houghton just keeps on delivering. Even for a M.A.R (Middle Aged Raver) like me. In fact, the mostly younger crowd were very welcoming and friendly to us older folk which is just how I was in reverse when I was first going to raves so its nice to have that bit of karma returned to me intact. What is the difference between a 20yr old raver and a 40yr old raver? A: 20 years. (drum roll put-lease). Truth is it turns out that nothing changes and no-one cares. And even if they did, who cares? You should never stop doing something you enjoy for some perceived notion of what someone else is or isn’t thinking. You’ll never know anyway so it really doesn’t make a shit of a difference…unless you let it and that’s down to you and you only.
Should I have found something better to do? Maybe but I didn’t. So why fight it? I think one of the reasons why rave culture is not ageist is that all of their favourite djs, like Andy Weatherall and co. are now all in their 50s and no-one could give a monkeys. It is generally accepted that you have to be a bit old in the tooth to have had enough time to get a decent record collection so its ok for djs to be middle aged, and if you are an original raver in the same age group, that is kinda ok too. Or so it would seem…
Once again Craig Richards put together an incredible line-up of djs who were all allowed to flex their stuff as were given long sets, 3.4 hours + to be able to build their musical journey at their own pace and desire. And we were all in for the ride they wanted to take us on. They are encouraged to play what they want rather than just known crowd pleasers and as a result every sound system feels like a big house party. The other great thing is that every little sub-genre of dance music is represented in some way and what is on offer is some of the best of its kind. Whether you’re into minimal tech, breakbeats, grooves, banging beats, disco heaven, dirty house..its mostly all catered for and if you don’t dig one dj you are only moments from another. Highlight of my weekend was Coleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy who did an absolute banging set in the little Stallions tent. David Mancuso’s protege is a force to be reckoned with and she was nothing short of spectacular.
On the saturday it chucked it down a bit and we went from stage to stage looking for a bit of rain respite, protected along the way by my trusty Samurai umbrella. Just as the heavens opened and the floodgates opened we were in a tiny tent on the hill (i think it was on a hill) where Awkard Moments were playing. They gave a mesmeric performance which was aided by a hypnotic projected animated sequence which beamed onto the gauze in front of them. I watched and listened, utterly captivated as the rain added some meditative percussion on the tent. It was a bizarre and quite beautiful moment of serenity amidst the carnage of the weekend.
My other highlight was Horse Meat’s Disco mammoth 6hr daytime set on the Saturday afternoon . Just joyful. A perfect daytime affair with the sun shining and everyone beaming.
The other good thing about Houghton, which I noticed also last year, is they don’t really flag up who’s playing where – they want you to discover music rather than just head to the big names and the process works. We stumbled upon a brilliant set by Jake Manders in the record shop which was called Demitri’s or Vinny’s or something like that and also heard some amazing sets by djs who we had no idea who they were. They do supply a printed schedule with all the various set times on it but the font is unfeasibly small and I think that is deliberate. Add in myopia and a bit of an eye wobble and and we coudldn’t make out a single word. This was one downside of being a M.A.R. and desperate to find out when Coleen Murphy was on, I commandeered a young person with fresh eyes and made them read my programme out to me. Ah the joys of ageing…
I can’t think of any reason why I would not return next year and I sincerely hope I do. For me now, there is Houghton and there is everything else. And I think the reason that it attracts the right crowd is that it is ‘music first’. People are there first and foremost for the tunes and a lot of festival crowds are no longer geared that way and you can tell. It creates for a different experience but when you are all together, united in your love of music, nothing can stop you…
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.
The Houghton festival delivered across the board..beautiful location, amazing line-up, super friendly lovely people, incredibly well organised, it took 10 minutes to get from your tent to the main area and every random encounter was brilliant..for me the overall experience was the closest I have experienced to a proper old skool rave – it is exactly the sort of place and people I have been searching for at festivals over the years and not always finding..until now.
One of the great things about it was that it was the first time it had ever happened which meant no-one group had put their stamp on it or made it a certain way yet. As a result every just got on with it and it just rolled out very naturally and beautifully thanks to the general good vibes of everyone there, from the organisers, to the punters, to the staff, to the artists. We spoke to one of the production managers working there and they said the aim was to treat everyone as well as they could be treated no matter who they were. And you really felt it. You were made to feel welcome, a guest in their delicious domain. So often at festivals you are barked at and herded around, made to queue for everything, made to feel like you are just being rinsed of your cash, a cog in the music machine. This was not the case here…
Houghton understood that you need to make everyone feel good, not just through the music and the setting but by each and every person to person encounter. The crowd itself were a brilliantly varied collection of clubbers, musos, norfolk locals, cool poshos, loved up londonites, young ravers, old ravers and a very healthy smattering of party people & here-we-go hedonists. The great thing is that there wasn’t an overbearing of any one group and most importantly, despite where we were from, we all fell under the same general banner: smiley chatty friendly folk who were up for a dance, a giggle and a bit of quality random banter. Over the course of the weekend we identified ourselves not from the groups we came from but the group we became. Everyone just felt chuffed they had gone there on a bit of a punt, not really knowing what it would be like and it had been a gloriously correct decision.
We weren’t 100% sure what we were doing there but we knew pretty quick it was definitely where we wanted to be. And what a place to be it was. Set in stunning grounds of a stately home by a beautiful lake, there were lots of little magical forest glades to get lost in, weird shit to stumble upon and admire. The trees themselves were lusciously lit in a myriad of different colours and there was even a sculpture park which we initially thought we had found but on returning to it in the light of day, turned out just to be a collection of trees that had on our night-time inspection appeared as if they had faces sculpted into them. Apparently the real one was pretty cool too…
Houghton really got it right on so many levels. They had a cap of about 7000 people which seemed like the perfect amount of people as there were tons of people to have fun with but you could always get away from the crowds and nothing was to much of a hassle. The only place you had to queue for on occasion was to get into the Quarry, a rave style amphitheatre which drew big crowds depending on who was playing, especially Andy Weatherall who we caught the last bit of his set which rocked & was dynamite throughout apparently. Other highlights were Nicholas Jar who did an incredibly eclectic set which was nothing short of a truly uplifting and transportive journey. You got the feeling throughout the weekend that all the djs were playing what they wanted, without feeling the need to appeal to a mainstream crowd and the sets were all the better for it.
Despite a very well thought out dj selection there was however hardly any visible documentation of the line-up anywhere in the festival which, although a little frustrating at first, it meant rather than have a fixed plan of who to see, you instead wandered from tent to tent led by your ears or by word of mouth and stumbled upon amazing sets by accident. Was this itself chance or an actual intention of the festival? They had thought of so much it did seem possible this too was deliberate. We did miss a few djs we would have liked to have seen (Scruff, N.O.W to name a couple) but we were undoubtedly disposed elsewhere having a right rollocking time and the quality of tunes was good everywhere so it didn’t really matter where you were. We did have an amazing dance toColeen ‘cosmo’ murphy’s set which I think (eek) was in the Brilliant Corners tent – memory slightly blurred and facts on the hazy side but we definitely had a total moment to the disco classic Native New Yorker. Cracked magazine posted up their fav tracks from the weekend which was great as filled in a quite few gaps of the weekend…click on link below to get a taste of the tunes…
Craig Richards finale set was off the chart, and being the man behind the curation of this festival, was a perfect example of the Houghton experience . If this festival is anything to go by djs should organise and curate festivals more often because Craig and Gottwood, who produced the festival, knew exactly what was needed to make a magnificent party. Everyone I have spoken to who I have told that I went to Houghton have all reacted the same way..oh my god, you were at houghton! I heard it was brilliant. I’m so jealous. I’m definitely going next year…and that, in some ways, is really my only concern. I hope that Houghton stays exactly the way it is and doesn’t expand too much because it was bang on.
Inevitably all festivals become a victim of its own success and end up becoming something beyond their original intention but I really hope this does not happen with Houghton and (perhaps opitmistically) feel that it won’t. I was sort of in two minds about telling everyone how good it was so as to keep it under the radar but that just felt wrong. People need to know about this and I believe in Houghton. They got so much spot on I am sure they will want to keep it exactly as it is…and can we please have a big massive hand for the 24/7 non-stop no curfew music policy – not even Glasto has that!
So would like to thank the organisers for giving a shit and putting on such a great festival and also to all of you random bods who we met and chatted to on our travels throughout the weekend…2nd storey, the guy at the record thingy, the german notting hillbilly and his girlfriend at the lake, the two guys we were sat next to crumpled up in the corner of that little tent, the couple in the queue at the quarry, the guy who looked like a Victorian circus dude, the french girl who wanted a tissue to take off her lipstick, all our other encounters who have now slightly blurred and especially to birthday boy M.P and all of his brilliant festival gang who made it for us – pleasure hanging out with you all…until next year!
I also went to The Bimble Bandada festival in my holidays – it was in a beautiful valley with cows on hills and it was very pretty. I had lots of fun and danced a lot and made lots of new friends. There were swirly lights and a hot tub. They also had a weird giant baby.
Sonar is a gi-normous beast of an electronic music festival that takes place predominantly in an insanely large aircraft hangar on the outskirts of Barcelona. It has grown and grown since I was first there in 2006 and it was pretty massive then. It has built on its great rep and now attracts tons of thousands of dance music aficionados & partygoers from all over the world. As its name and success have grown it has inevitably attracted a more mainstream audience, especially a lot of Brit blokes and birds that might once have gone to Megaluf and Ibiza now also come here too for a bit of sunshine raving.
It has over time become a very well-oiled machine and together with its vastness and corporate tie-ins has resulted in the loss of some of its coolness. Everything is now contained within the area 51 style location and all the satellite parties around it (anti-sonar etc) have been shut down. Its still a magnificent weekend with a fantastic line-up showcasing the best dance music around and Barcelona as a festival destination is second to none. Disco nights and beach/pool side days are a glorious combination.
I will undoubtedly be there again, even if its just to see our friend Mary who will seemingly only be met on this weekend at this festival which she has been attending to for a whopping 13 years in a row….as darth would say, impressive, most impressive.
