It’s no secret that this festival is literally the highlight of my year. After a week of fancy-dress-related panic, on Thursday morning I finished stuffing my bag with an assortment of glitzy goodies that would make Lady GaGa proud. From sequinned knickers to a trio of tu-tu’s, the Secret Garden Party is just too-too good an excuse for true festivilites to pull out their most conspicuous attire.
The organisers (and genius’) behind Secret Garden are the first to admit that this festival offers very little for elite-hungry music lovers. Those hoping for that magical moment where, yes…from about 100 metres away, the lead singer with the long shaggy hair and constant bedroom eyes definitely winked at them out of thousands of crazed fans, were set to be heavily (and amusingly) disappointed. However, those open to a selection of big bad and heavy bass, naughty electronic noises, a sweet dose of soothing ska and a random dude in the middle of a field playing a vintage guitar, were in for a tantalising treat.
After SPG 2008’s faultless festivities, I was excited to see just how they were going to “up the stakes” this year. The festival itself was bigger; the field that had become our home and place of rest last year was now the world of Babylon, representing one half of the festival, the PARTY side! The other half, would be Eden, which symbolizes the calmer, more peaceful part, (I wasn’t planning on spending much time here!). Every ticketholder has been assigned to a tribe and asked to dress up accordingly. I was of course, a Babylonian! So I will go ahead and try and convey to you the mess-fest that was Secret Garden Party 2009, but I’ve got to say I became slightly nocturnal and may have missed some of the festivals more.. er.. normal daytime offerings.
As well as the site being split into the land of Edenites and Babylonians, SGP 09 was also centred on the theme of “The Grand Wedding”. So on the Thursday night, which represented the “Engagement Party” I was surprised to see that there wasn’t really that much going on. I thought to myself that maybe these revellers were the clever ones, the ones that realise that if you peak too early, come Saturday you’re as limp and brain-dead as an old potato. So I don’t know what that makes us, because we were knocking them back!
We wandered around Babylon / party central but by 11pm all the music had stopped, so my 5 friends and I found a happy hippy hide-away tent playing what sounded like “late-night mellow magic” but that was okay! People around us seemed content relaxing on their floral floor cushions, chugging away on rollies and drinking chai tea. Minutes after we sat down, my eyes were drawn to a small blonde girl… she was out of her friggin head!! One minute she was standing at the tea counter and the next she was toppling forward as her arm reached out to turn an invisible door knob, and then, there she lay, about a metre from me smiling cheekily. Then she shouted: “NO! N… O….. No..!” whilst wagging her finger at the ceiling. To top it off, the happy hippy who had just sold her a cup of chai, was shouting “someone’s forgotten their tea... someone just ordered chai tea?” The lady peered over the counter and just laughed.
So that was literally my Thursday night summed up, shortly after that we retreated back to camp and prepared for tomorrow... the hen/stag do!!
There were 20 of us in total, and of course the boys were ready hours before we had even decided what to wear. Today was about tacky hen-night clobber, which we all did quite successfully (from maid’s outfits to stripper-stockings we were rocking it Essex style).
The festival was in full bloom on Friday, with all the music tents pumping and the bars bustling, it was time to get into the real festival spirit. After eating the most DELICIOUS half a chicken from the “Roaming Rotisserie” we went and raved to some bad-boy drum and bass in the aptly named “Where the Wild Things are” tent. We then wondered to the bar, but got distracted by the tiny little tent called the Temple of Excess, which was absolutely jam packed and playing some seriously bouncy electro beats brought by The Priory DJ’s. We didn’t leave this sweat-den for 4 HOURS!
After raving our wellies off, we headed for the tree-house. My memories of SGP 2008 stretch very little further than this quant little place. A two-storey house imagined from fairy tales and crafted with scaffolding, this was the ultimate wreck-head hide-away-hole! Tucked beneath willow trees beside the lake, this is a little Secret House Party. It was only in the early evening that the secret was unveiled and the ground floor sound system pumped bassy tunes through the tree-house and drew a crowd that filled the teeny house’s capacity ten-fold and spilled out onto the lake-side. Here DJ Fifth Gear played a drum and bass set that had the ravers literally swinging from the scaffolding!
If you could squeeze through and get to upstairs there was an assortment of comfy cushions, little garden benches and tiny tables, a complete mismatch of furniture but as cute as can be. And around the sides and amongst the willow’s branches are several piano’s. Where else in the world can you sit and watch a 50 year old Dumbledore lookalike sit at a piano and try to beat-match A Minor with the drum and bass tune pumping through the floorboards? No-where.
After a tree-house session we hurried to the Ninja Tunes tent where drum and bass DJ Sub Focus was playing. Being the best, but most unstructured festival, in true SGP style, Sub Focus played nearly an hour late. Meanwhile, Adam Freeland kept the crowd jumping with his bounce-along breakbeat, creating the perfect vibe for the hardcore rave session brought in by Sub Focus. The tent was rammed and sweaty and being right at the front, toilet breaks were not an option. During Sub Focus’ set, however, the volume seemed to be decreasing by the tune, and as he pumped out his own classic “Timewarp” the whole crowd began chanting “TURN IT UP... TURN IT UP”. He looked seriously pissed off. It was obvious that there was nothing he could do; his set had clashed with the after-midnight noise restrictions set out by the festival organisers (thanks to the moaning locals of Huntingdon.) Despite the music being so low, I could hear the guy a metre away from me saying to his girlfriend “shall we go back to the tent sexy?”… GROSS… people still raved away to what was probably the most renowned drum and bass DJ playing at the festival.
After Sub Focus we waited for some dark dubstep from Caspa, but to our disappointment, you had to hire headphones for the “silent disco” in order to hear the tunes, (again due to noise restrictions). And they wanted 2000 of the Queens pennies to do so! Yes, £20 worth of beer money to hire out some headphones to look like a complete donut dubstepping away. This completely flopped and only about 20 donuts got down and dirty with the dub. We left.
Being totally spent, in body, mind and also pocket, we headed back to catch a few hours kip, knowing that in about an hour, the sun would blaze through our sweaty tent and prevent us from even breathing, let alone sleeping. Oh dear… no time to rejuvenate for Saturday’s Grand Wedding then!
PART 2 TO FOLLOW...
Posted In Festivals, Aug 11 2009.
Words - Lara