Never has travelling to a festival been so easy, well from London that is! And so it begins. Boarding onto the eastbound central line tube towards Essex and getting off at Hainault my photographer Jim was there ready and waiting to pick me up. We are here to cover year two of the alternative old meets new 2 day Offset festival. 

After paying a reasonable £2 parking fee, we gathered our kit and made towards the entrance. This is only a short pace away from parking, so no long treks involved compared to the bigger festivals.  The campsite is sectioned off in the middle part of a huge grass area and makes you think of District 9 with its security at the gates and a watchtower. This makes it contained and easier for security to manage with a full view of the in/out of campers otherwise the possibility of thievery from outsiders is on a plate. Two lighting stations (and noisy generators) at each end keep it floodlit when darkness falls, and the slot style fencing means the lazy create their own short cuts.

No glass bottles are allowed onto the campsite and you are not allowed to bring any drinks of your own into the arena. An annoyance to the punter but rules are put in place behind the politics of obtaining a license (maybe?), and security man or woman was always happy to do their job (definitely). So, some were successful in sneakage and the rest were, well……confiscated. This of course means you’ll help the festival profit successfully and choices of Adnams Bitter, Carlsberg & Aspall Cider will knock you back about £3.50-£4.00 a pop.

The stages and arena are not placed throughout the woods as one might have hoped. It is more a sectioned off part of a field against the backdrop of the woods. With the two parts of the festival, the camping/arena being organised like this, you can see the potential for expansion.

A walk around the ring type arena of stages and stalls could be done in about 5 minutes. This keeps it small, compact and contained with all the stages within close proximity to each other. The crowd, like the format of the festival, was a mixture of old meets new with a few kids running about. You are quick to notice that the male to female ratio seemed around 50/50 with enough hipsters & scenesters to make it feel like a Hoxton village fete.

As with any fete, the whistles blew and the speaker phones gathered the attention for the sportsday event ran by the Skiptheatre girls. These are races for the enthusiastic or under influence, like the backwards race and the accident-waiting-to-happen; the blindfold race. Some poor lad gave it full throttle and misinterpreted stop chants for cheers, causing him to go full on into a lighting station which would knock him out. The impact could be heard over the music from the New Band stage! It certainly raised concern but he was attended to instantly by staff as a slowly recovering mind listened to the birdies sing!

 

And now for some bands…….

Independent new wave post punk northerners The Futureheads were in full force of wit with their mackam comments, even dividing the crowd into a left side/right side terrace split style to participate in giving them little hounds of loving (see what I did there, eh?). ‘Thank you for that little cheer from Essex’ they commented and something about Bratwursts in reference to the magnificent Herman Ze German bangers.

 

                                       

 

After a couple of cunning top secret can smuggling missions, someone I had to catch for influential reasons was Damo Suzuki. I am more into the Neu/Kraftwerk side of German Krautrock but wanted to see or more witness what I’d heard about the once-lead-singer of the seminal band Can. Sometimes indecipherable (or maybe always) was Damo’s singing in contrast to the backing musicians that are simply refered to as 'soundcarriers'. As John Lennon once said, the ‘Avant garde is French for bullshit’ and I would agree if I had just fleeted in and not stayed for a while but I stuck around. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and who was leading who? Sometimes it lifted off into unknown jams that sounded there without being there if you know what I mean? Err…Hello?

The Slits (would you?) were a surprise for me, because I just had them down for a dub fusion lady group but with a musical place you cannot really knock. Ari Up was giving the full post ‘can you hear me’ sound check after the techie sound check, knowing full well this sort of thing can make or break a show (as to the horror of a certain band on the next day). Fair play to this because they sounded excellent in my ears, not construed to a certain era and boasting freshness despite their 30 year lifespan.

 

                                       

 

After a few clockwise and anti clockwise walkabouts I saw that Metromony had been upgraded to the Main Stage, but gone were the attached body lights! After this a gathering had happened around what looked like a guerrilla DJ set up (surely not?) under a gazebo near the ECC stage. Some guys were loving it so much they threw off their clobber and one started playing with his…..cock! Ladies  & Gentlemen, only in Essex!

Right, onto Sunday…………

 

We opted to leave for some breakfast on a town strip in Redbridge for a full english breakie and washed it down with a couple of bloody marys. This is also a great chance for a luxurious sit-down bog time, rather than the grimace of the portaloos. Only downfall of this little venture is you have to pay another £2 to park your car again. Or do you-like one man did- give the most ‘fuck you I am not paying’ face I have seen in a while, and just plough through past the steward?! By the looks of it, though, he was not a festie goer and most likely disgruntled because a music festival has ruined his plans for his dogging later. Ladies & Gentlemen, only in…..nah leave it! ; )

Back on site there were a lot more security and an empty-your-pockets-on-a-table routine at the entrance. Spotting band members around site, we saw the likes of Faris Rotter (The Horrors) chatting with friends and the frontman of The xx  watching SCUM! James Chapman (Maps) was sitting outside the tent he was to perform in shortly. Maps were probably the most anticipated for myself because, like many others, I am a fan of the debut album We Can Create that made a Mercury Music nomination. Well this is the difficult second album time and the set up is now stripped down to 2 members, James Chapman and August, rather than the five piece outfit of the 1st album. Best to go for a new direction than follow up with an encore to a gem I think and, judging by the new upbeat approach, it now sounds like Maps meets Pet Shop Boys in a good but not naff way. The highlight was the new uplifting single ‘I Dream of Crystal’.

 

                                         

 

Clinic could be called the unsung heroes of the cult John Peel World. Entering the stage in trademark surgical gear to give the full music operation they had to give the tightest performance of the weekend. Rockabilly meets the Liverpudlian wild west, theirs is a unique sound that stands alone today. 

The lateness of A Certain Ratio meant they had to be abandoned for a packed out ECC stage for the owners of the finest debut album this year. I’m glad I quickly checked out The xx a few days before leaving- thanks to the new friend in my life, Spotify- as the still emotive feelings throughout the album were given in performance, with the delicate ‘his ‘n’ her’ harmonies unhurried but building and climbing without push.  This is something, a sound missing from early post punk times of bands like The Cure and I would not be surprised if the album grows to be more and more talked about and achieve prized status.

The full moon was out in beam but sadly no werewolves were about before the headline act The Horrors took to the stage. They seemed distracted because they were plagued with sound troubles and although the show went on, there was a lot of pacing about and uncertainty amongst the band members. This was mainly a problem with the synth and especially with the ‘Baba o Riley’ moment of ‘Sea within a Sea’. On stage was the technician trying to sort it out during performance, while the drummer (Coffin Joe) kept banging away and not once losing pace. This went on for minutes until synthman Tomethy Furse tried to flag his attention to synch the ending but it didn’t happen the way it should. This resulted in him walking off stage followed by the band. A shame, for such a climatic end to the song and album, to finish in such an anti climatic way.

 

                                          

 

The underbelly for the success of this festival venture runs a lot deeper than to merge collective clubs and stage a get together for the Hoxton/Shoreditch crowd. The idea of a conduit linked to the old and new influence is far more inspiring than the ‘lets make loads of money’ pish of something as crass as V Festival. I’m glad I witnessed this festival so early on because I’m now already excited about who would be the influences booked for next year.

 

More photos by Jim Klass from Offset can be seen here

 

www.flickr.com/photos/musicprowler/

 

 

Posted In Festivals, Sep 21 2009. Words - Miles