Beat Herder 2007

United Kingdom | by Tamar Newton | 01 July 2007

From tall spindly woods come the sound of deep, deep beats - fields and mountains stretch into a misty infinity like a post apocalyptic Middle Valley as we tumble past carved wooden mushrooms and sculptures to emerge in front of the Main Stage, where a woman dressed as Spiderman is skanking and hollering on a stage full of people rapping, shaking, shouting, singing.

Welcome to Skinny Sumo’s infectious happy miasma of sound where tunes bound forth, more catchy than syphilis and cause Pied Piper like, people to turn around stare, and start to dance. The sky turns surly black, a bleak foreboding of things to come but the bass kicks in, a filthy fast reggae beat impossible to resist and everyone girates as one.

After wonderful swishy belly dancers, come the UR Penetrators, punk with a makeover – wiry staccato broken glass disco beats - CSS crossed with old school riffs and a glamorous front woman in black yelping with evil intent. And the sun comes out to play.

A break and a wonderful realisation that the punter is not being ripped off. Many festivals are spoilt by all cash being spent on rancid five quid veggie burgers - nullifying the festie spirit somewhat being treated like a moronic millionaire. At the Hawthorn café, in a sofa-strewn tent, I have an oven-baked potato with real butter and good cheese for two quid. Then I go and have a coffee for 50p. This is the true festival spirit. Being treated as a mate rather than a gullible punter as you chat to the café’s owners and people natter to you whilst a newly found mate in a tiara blows a bubble on a toddler’s tummy.

A wander through the Toil Trees, the skinny wood of techno beats reverberating whilst bemasked acid ravers dance in the dusk. There is both an underground bar and a tea shack. Then back to the Main Stage while kids on Space Hoppers leap past into the sudden quagmire to see Transglobal Underground, happy ethnic madness with all instruments under the rain. Big dancey beats and ethnic chanting, sporadic rapping, Bollywood sitar rave and belly dancing are the epitome of a festival, not fucking Keane. 

There is nothing more quintessentially English than waking up hung-over to a billion bursts of rain slamming malevolently against the fine mesh of a Eurohike tent in a field somewhere to the sound of muffled bass. Back across a suddenly Somme like site, boots squelching, we discover an authentic Working Men’s Club under canvas. Gilt and tack abounds as Adam Barry croons sweetly ironic pop covers whilst a man in a sack and a bulbous fake nose thumps an electric piano and hideously grins. A pint of real ale is two quid and a moustachioed Queen stares down from the beer mat bedecked wall. The attention to detail is superb - there is surreal bingo, tacky ashtrays, bad frocks and comedy. Think Phoenix Nights with mud. And more mud.

Digitalis on the Main Stage tick all the festival bingo boxes. Does someone breed this sort of band to only come out in the summer like crusty butterflies?  Drums, flying dreadlocks and Sensor style raps and beats cause a sodden mini fluster around the stage and it’s hard to not dance.

The Lancashire Hotpots can only be described as utterly brilliant. Eat your heart out Wurzels - the North has bitten back. In a true Lancashire accent they sing delightful paeans to the joys of ‘chippy teas’-
‘ I don’t want lobster thermidor with raspberry coulis-I’m a working man from Lancashire and I want a chippy tea’. They catchily mock emos, ravers and alcopop drinkers to the accompaniment of ukuleles and banter to a suddenly enormous beaming and cheering audience. The lyrics are hysterical and as they would say up here are indeed ‘reet good lads’

DubFx in the Bushrockers Family Hi Fi tent is a one-man revelation, a foot pedal powered magician, a coiled spring of energy and rhythm spitting beats and words over simple loops, manipulated by the buttons and sliders by his feet. He has the filthy punters in the tent staring in awe and dancing with joy, smiling with sheer delight.

By now the mud is only surpassed by the friendliness - just when a skid, a sulk and a dream of home occurs, someone beams, chats and offers a fag. Another bimble through the Stumblefunk tent, a hot ‘n’ happy techno paradise and then Jim Noir over on the main stage - think sharp and snappy easy listening.

The Whip are gallopy electro riffage in an eighties stylee but the crowd want Zion Train who don’t disappoint being that perfect fusion of hysteria, techno, dub and brass which are the undiluted ingredients to a festival band.
 
Its pissing it down though and refuge is sought in the Trailer Trash tent, an unholy cacophony of Jesus paintings, fairy lights and dance music. People in fancy dress squelch through the mud holding out grimy hands to strangers - you feel part of something here instead of a mere consumer.

Sunday dawns beatifically and then bites back. The sun flirts though the dark clouds and a cheer is raised from mud-bedecked lumps, formally people. Then God expresses his distain for people who believe in summer by unleashing hell. Thunder and lightning so very, very frightening when there's no roof and cheesy chips and beer the only safety net. The main arena is closed down due to health and safety - we try to head forth to listen to the sounds of the brass band Blowjangles on stage but sink slowly in the quagmire, not drowning but waving.

The biblical rain continues - the music stops. People are leaving saying that the festie is over, that the rest of the bands can’t play due to flooding. We hitch a lift back with a stranger (tis that sort of festival).  Just as we leave, we hear the sound of triumphant brass as the sun beams out. And I want to run back to what weirdly seems like home.