MENU: FREEROTATION, BESTIVAL & BEACONS FESTIVAL.
With winter undeniably approaching us, it’s with great pleasure that we look back on another lovely summer full of festivals aplenty amongst the many Truants running around the globe. Though maybe not as full as last years extensive list (we were planning one hell of a relaunch for you after all) it still holds some of the best-loved and dearest summer blowouts. From the vast and bountiful fields of Bestival, the magical atmosphere seen at the Welsh Freerotation, and the beautiful Dales Beacons is set upon the TT crew were out in force. While we anxiously wait to pencil in plans for next summer, it’s with fond and hazy memories that we remember and write down our experiences of the summer of 14′. Maybe 2015 will see the first festival in which every member of the Truants embark upon together, watch this space and see you there!
Freerotation Festival, July 11-13
As fellow Truant Tabitha documented last year, getting a ticket to FreeRotation is no easy task. In fact, it’d taken me a few years to even get membership for FreeRotation so imagine my excitement when I managed to luck out and get a ticket on my first attempt. The festival is a favourite of many, including our very own Truancy Volume 100 guest Ben UFO, and its very easy to see why. The format of the festival, or so I’ve been told, has barely changed from previous years. 3 rooms in the main Baskerville Hall Hotel building offer up the majority of the festival’s impressive lineup of house and techno. A tent, also inside the hotel, is set aside for ambient sets for those looking for a bit of solace from the usual fare of 4/4. During the day the outdoor dome provides the gradual warmup for the events later that night. The small size of the festival means the campsite is a couple of minutes away, if even that. All that makes sure you catch as much of the music as you’d like.
With lineup crammed with so many people I wanted to see, this was obviously a brilliant thing. It’s hard to pick out highlights of the weekend but I immediately returned from the festival in raptures about Objekt’s set in Room 2. He’s thankfully since uploaded the set to Soundcloud so I can relive it and others to get a taste of what happened, but a ballroom filled wall-to-wall with very sweaty people going ballistic is hard to fully replicate with a mere recording. Being able to float around different stages and be greeted almost universally with incredible sets, catching Leif craft a beautiful atmosphere in Room 3 and Conforce’s electro exploits in Room 1 were further highlights. Outdoors in the dome Leif (again), XDB and Move D were a few of the many highlights that got the daily proceedings going. DJ Bone and Joey Anderson, both of whom I’d wanted to see for years duly delivered and on the Sunday I availed of the ambient tent when I was feeling a little worn out, catching a good chunk of Juju & Jordash’s blissful ambient set. It was perfect to get me going again for the entirely contrasting Inigo Kennedy who sent Room 2 into similar exertions they had at Objekt 24 hours beforehand. It was the final set of the weekend though, Voices From The Lake, that takes the award for the best set of the festival as they wove layers of sound for 2 hours to create one of the most absorbing techno sets I’ll probably witness. It was the idyllic ending to an idyllic festival. I’m hooked. (ANTOIN LINDSAY) Back to top.
Bestival, September 4-7
To say that Bestival has a lot going for it is perhaps an understatement. It’s also perhaps unsurprising; any festival that manages to convince well over sixty thousand people to trek to the Isle of Wight year after year is clearly doing something right. This year the absence of any rain made the Robin Hill Country Park setting that bit more beautiful while the extra efforts made by festival organisers to deliver truly unique stages made for a near perfect environment to party in.
When it comes to programming Bestival has built its name on giving live talent and DJs equal weight on the lineup. It’s one of the reasons the festival continues to have such pull. Thursday night saw the Numbers cartel arrive to take over the Red Bull Music Academy Stage alongside some special guests. The piano mix of Westbam’s “Old School, Baby” was a highlight of Spencer and Optimo’s special back-to-back set and the trio generally seeming to function best exchanging driving house numbers. Although Jackmaster and Oneman’s ‘Can U Dance’ performance had some standout moments, it generally struggled to match Optimo and Spencer for consistency – although the sound cutting off at a couple of intervals definitely didn’t help the duo’s cause. On Friday night DJ Harvey proved exactly why he has such an esteemed reputation. His two and a half hour evening set (one of two that day) was heavy on melody as he sat edits of Paradise Garage anthems and emotionally charged techno alongside one another in a fully coherent fashion. It was certainly one of the weekend’s best sets and one won’t be forgotten anytime soon.
The party vibe extended to the third day of festivities. Artwork has been quick to declare Bestival his favourite festival of the summer and this enjoyment was evident as he mixed through classic material by Donna Summer and New Order via “Gypsy Woman” and the Mousse T. remix of “Get Up Everybody“. One of the weekend’s biggest surprises came from Park Ranger. A bit of misinformation on the festival lanyards had led us to believe that Bicep would be playing at their takeover of the Bollywood tent an hour earlier than when they were actually scheduled. We were past caring about five minutes into catching Park Ranger anyway. Having earned his stripes warming up for DJs such as Ben UFO and Move D at his Trouble Vision night at Corsica Studios, Park Ranger fully displayed the breadth of his talents behind the decks as his disco-flavoured cuts warmed the crowd up nicely. Medlar followed by producing some of the most frenzied dancing of the weekend, mixing garage bangers such as Roger Ruff’s “Do Ya” and M-Dubs “Bump N Grind” alongside Outkast classics and other party weapons. Having continually teased the crowd with the acapella of “Let No Man Put Asunder” throughout the duration of his set, he layered it over the top of Lone’s soaring “Airglow Fires” to dizzyingly euphoric effect. Sunday was all about the headline performance of Chic and Nile Rodgers. Despite the tragic loss of Rodgers’ guitar tech Terry Brauer just hours earlier, the band were in colossal form as they raced through a barnstorming two hour set of some of Rodgers most loved work.
Now in its eleventh year, Bestival is a seasoned veteran of the UK’s crowded festival circuit. This experience was evident over the weekend’s duration; everything about the festival felt remarkably assured. None of the horror stories of hours spent queuing for shuttle buses and ferries materialised for either me or my friends. In fact, everybody seemed to be getting to where they needed to be with plenty of time to spare. The food and drink stalls on offer had something for everyone – whether you were hankering for vegan soul food, questionable lamb doners or a greasy breakfast to blow away the cobwebs from the night before. The extra effort put in by the organisers – whether it was directed at the staging or the diversity and extent of the lineup – seemed to be result in everyone having a great time. Indeed, throughout the weekend the sense of enjoyment at Bestival was palpable and the organisers should take much of the credit for this. In the business of delivering fun, few do it better. (MATT GIBNEY) Back to top.
Beacons Festival, August 7-10
Truants were out in force for the third instalment of Beacons Festival and, once again, we were so glad that we made the trip. We wrote fairly extensively about the many things we like about Beacons in our preview and are happy to report that all of these things held fast. All of these things except the weather, naturally. It’s hard not to enjoy a festival like Beacons to be honest. The crowd is always a huge part of a festival’s success and here it remains diverse, friendly and, perhaps most importantly, willing to check things out that they wouldn’t normally. This is at its most evident when, sometime around midnight, only the Resident Advisor tent remains open and the crowds flood in rather than just heading back to their tents. You can’t help but feel that the crowd is so amenable since they’re well catered for in all of the essentials. It’s possible to eat like a king whilst on a budget, drink outside of the usual premium beers and visit the toilet without having to queue for too long or witness anything too atrocious. In the interest of balance, we did notice that there’s a slight corporate element being introduced which is, in some ways, understandable but seems to slightly contradict the festival’s independent ethos. Beacons however, continues to grow, and being only their third year in action what they managed was staggering. The grass roots feel of the festival coupled with a line up that caters for all tastes and attractions for all the family makes it one enjoyable place; Yorkshire know’s what’s up.
Of course, the thing that entices us most of all every year is the musical programme and there were plenty of highlights to tell you about. We finally emerged from our somewhat structurally-inept communal tent on Friday in order to catch Daphni’s early evening set. Playing crowd pleasers such as “Can’t Do Without You” before building up to a delirious finish with his mix of Cos-ber-zam’s “Ne Noya”, it was a strong start to the festival. This crowd was then split with some wanting to fully immerse in a three hour Daniel Avery set and others who couldn’t resist the allure of Action Bronson. It wasn’t necessary to win the crowd over, despite his late start, but he did anyway, bringing out Mayhem Lauren and inciting a sing-a-long to the quintessentially British “Come on Eileen”. Saturday brought some much needed sun as well as some excellent sets from the likes of Jackmaster, Volte-Face and TV97’s Pariah who played at the very nicely remodelled RBMA Studios Live Stage. The pinnacle though was perhaps the set of Jon Hopkins who proved to be quite the showman. At the beginning of “Open Eye Signal”, a barrage of fluorescent spheres were unleashed and quickly commandeered for a vast serotonin-drenched ball pit. Sunday was, in a word, apocalyptic. The combination of wintery rain and wind seemed to drive hordes of people back home, which was unfortunate since there was still plenty to be seen. Mano Le Tough and Dixon garnered a lot of the remaining crowds whilst turning the RA tent into their very own miniature Little Berlin whilst Darkside stole the show on the main stage. You’ll no doubt have your own opinions about the duo but witnessing what turns out to be one of their last (for the moment) shows whilst hellish winds billowed from all sides was a surprisingly poignant way to end the weekend. (MATT COOMBS)
Photo credits: Daddy’s Got Sweets (Freerotation), Dan Dennison (Bestival) and Giles Smith (Beacons Festival).