Festivals are not about who you are but who you want to be. Secret Garden Party aims its methodology at those who are willing to leave reason behind and just let go. As a festival veteran, I’d never found myself at SGP so I felt that I needed to check it off the list.
After a shaky start at the box office and a hellish drive on the M25 (who knew that there were so many traffic jams on that road), Secret Garden Party embraced me with it’s open arms; It was like a warm hug of smiles and appreciation that soon wiped away the stresses from earlier in the day.
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Thursday to Friday – Break your Festival Virginity
Scrolling through the beautiful festival programme, it’s apparent that there is more to SGP than just a few bands and a couple of DJ’s. A brief tour of the site was enough to show that this was the case. Labrinths, Mask making, Wonky Races are a huge part of the experience and need to be participated in. For those not a veteran to the festival, Secret Garden Party holds ceremonies and experiences for those with a cherry in need of picking. Virgin ceremonies aim their arrows at those who attending for the first time, with the Pagan introduction taking place on Thursday night and the more ‘mainstream’ introduction taking place on Friday with revellers being crowd surfed into the lake. I took the situation into my own hands and dive-bombed into the lake off the bridge that crosses the lake. Water virginity achievement unlocked; and my first security warning.
Music on the Friday kicked off at lunch but I waited until 2pm for Temples who got my immediate attention. The Kettering based group have a world full of hype following them and the encouraging turn out at the main stage was proof enough that they have a potential future; The jet flyover sure added to the intensity of the psychedelic bands’ set.
Whilst walking around the festival in my typical ‘pulled apart by horses and black shorts‘ get up, it became apparent that this conventional get up was not common place. My band t-shirt was being overshadowed by an exuberant display of glitter, colour and costumes. This is a good thing, possibly even a great thing.
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Further bands on the Friday included Deep Sea Arcade, Childhood and the unlucky Shout Out Louds whose slot was accidentally left out of the main stage timetable page that led to a significant lack of audience. The previous day, Zane Lowe had the new track from The Strypes as his hottest track in the world and rightfully so. The Irish based band played an incredibly tight set with one punter even stating that they are showing experience that is worlds above their young age. Rightfully coined as ‘the future of rock and roll’ in the programme, The Strypes fully deserved their main stage billing. As did headliners Django Django who brought the whole field to a stand still to unite in their their rhythmic blend of music.
Saturday Morning – Who’s going to play with me
That Eels lyric is a great foundation on which to build a Saturday on at SGP. Jump up and take advantage of the day; especially one that was being headlined by 2ManyDjs. The day started early at 11am with the sublime Josh Record taking to the ‘where the wild things are’ stage; his warm acoustic vocals lit up the morning for the few that turned up and track The War brought a chill over the otherwise warm crowd.
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Over to the main stage for BBC Introducing winning act Indiana whose sunshine based set was overshadowed by a dog chasing a frisbee. No word of a lie, there were more cheers when the dog got closer to the frisbee than the band itself; This is nothing to do with the quality of the act but represents the nature of the party. Combine that with the incredible Diablo child and there was so much to watch that wasn’t the band.
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For live music fans, Saturday was one of the strongest days with a potential 16 hours of quality music being available to dip in and out of. Beans on Toast played his regular festival slot with is love for SGP being obvious throughout his set whilst follow up band More Like Trees wowed the crowd and this reviewer with an astonishing live set. If you fancy some acoustic dance music in your life, then you should look no further. Album review will be up on 7Bit soon but until then, I’ve attached the full album stream below for ease.
A one two combo of The Family Rain and Findlay meant the stage kept bouncing whilst acoustic troubadour Willy Mason kept the main stage happy.
With rain being on the agenda for the majority of the day, it was only a matter of time before the heavens opened. Luckily for the whole of the festival, they opened just before 2ManyDJ’s which meant the whole crowd had a chance to rave in the rain; a perk that should never be passed on. The duo played a strong set that was then finished up with by the burning of stage and a dramatic rain based fireworks display. Dance veterans Faithless were headliners of the evening however my legs and a Gin infused stomach led me over to The Other Tribe who were headlining The Temple of Boom. The act are strong contender to break massively this year and their performance at SGP was enough for me to agree with that statement.
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The night was not due to end there though; The word Secret in Secret Garden Party is significant as the number of secret sets over the weekend made up for what Glastonbury decided to do away with on The Park Stage. After a brief slip and slide down one of the sites prominent hills (I slid all the way down), it was time for a special DJ soundclash set between 2ManyDj’s and Jarvis Cocker. Jarvis’ was not even playing the festival and the DJ duo had just played to a full crowd but were now playing to a tiny tent in one of the vendor fields. Special does not even come close to the experience of watching the legendary Cocker attempt to match BPM of a vinyl with a Michael Jackson remix. A great way to end the Saturday.
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Sunday – The day of calm
Nursing heavy heads of staying awake seemed to be the aim of the day as the Secret Garden crowd seemed more concerned with lying down on hard ground. After a brief morning interlude with an early morning Gin, 7Bit favourite Farao opened the Wild things stage even though her sound was sadly drowned out by the lunch time dub of The Yacht Club. After an afternoon spent with Jamie N Commons, the talk of the day was that of the paint fight that takes place every year on the main stage. There is no need to talk about it, just watch the video below:
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Wonderful wonderful paint then led to wonderful wonderful food with the Sourced market providing some of the best festival food I have eaten in…a fucking long time. Halloumi and Chicken Salad was basically food sex in my mouth and was eaten not once, but twice within the space of 12 hours. Bitch please. Halloumi is the king of cheeses.
With an early start looming, it was getting close to pack up time but before that, there was a chance to catch the much hyped Dan Croll who provided the quote of the festival by calling the nearby dance stage a ‘shitty techno pontoon’. A huge crowd puller, Croll played a hit filled set including the incredibly catchy In/Out before the mighty Eliza and the Bear played a sun drenched set that included an amp blowout and proof that they are a band whose stadium filling sound should one day be filling said stadiums.
Not all Smiles
Secret Garden Party was a wonderful experience full of incredible people, music and events. Annoyingly though, every silver cloud has a shit stained lining. You may go to a festival with some of the most down to earth, chilled people, but like any festival, you can’t get away from a select few whose intention is to shit on your tent. I don’t want to end this on a downer, so I’m not going too. This was the only down point but hey, no review can be a flowing 5 out of 5.
If you want a weekend away where the extrovert is commonplace, then SGP is for you. Colour up, invest in making a fantastic outfit for every day and realise that life should not be as serious as the day to day real life insists it needs to be.
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