Bulldog Bash 2001 Review

Got your motor running? Looking for adventure?

Well look no further than the truly, most excellent and (perhaps surprisingly for you non-bikers) friendly festival that is the Bulldog Bash.

On the face of it then this might not be everyone's idea of a fun-filled weekend. I mean - try suggesting to someone you know who is not initiated into the biker fraternity that it might be pleasant to spend a few days and nights in an old airfield with several thousand assorted Hells Angel's and a bunch of hardcore Jap bike boy racers salivating over an assortment of hefty bikes and inhaling nitrous-oxide fumes.

Go on, try it. See what reaction you get.

But that just goes to show that you can fool most of the people most of the time.

I'll grant you that this festival isn't for everyone, but if you want to get back to real grass-roots stuff then you couldn't do much better.

Forget event security - who needs them when the Hells Angels are organising the party? Wouldn't you think twice about messing with guys who look like they pick their teeth with the bones of two-week-old roadkill?

Again though - appearances can be deceptive. I'm not saying that these blokes (and women for that matter) aren't tough. I'm just saying that I didn't feel in the least bit intimidated or threatened all weekend, and I was surrounded by 15,000 of them! And I'm certainly no Lemmy myself. Seriously, this must have been one of the safest festivals I've ever been to. Who in their right mind would risk breaking into the tent of a Hells Angel, or one of their friends?

The whole event had a kind of freeform feel to it. The bands played at seemingly random times that bore little resemblance to the program, and the '24 hour bar' consisted of a dozen people offloading cans and cases of beer from the back of a flatbed lorry that toured the site looking for thirsty punters. The bar in the main stage tent sold everything from reasonably priced cigarettes through to whole bottles of Mr Daniel's finest suppin' whisky.

Show me another major UK festival that has the guts to lay on this kind of hospitality without sending the organisers and local authorities into a panciked frenzy over expected trouble of one sort or another? I have to say, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when the head Angels met with the local (Stratford-upon-Avon) Council staff... interesting negotiations over licenses or what? Just the sight of the town centre's twee half-timbered architecture being laid siege to by hundreds of bearded biking fanatics eager to stock up on the essential festival wet-wipes was a picture to behold...