Secret Garden Party 2008

United Kingdom | | 30 July 2008

Throughout the hidden-away four-day festival almost every man, woman, child and casual cross-drEsser is kitted out in face-paint, sparkly bits or full-on fancy dress. Likewise, the second maxim for making the most of spread-out outdoor parties – getting yourself a programme early on – goes out of the window. Instead, line-ups, stage times and anything more than the roughest plans are shrugged off in favour of go-with-the-flow navigation of what is undoubtedly the prettiest and quite possibly the happiest festival site in Britain.

The shindig first kicked off four years ago with 1000 party-goers - capacity has been capped at 6,500 this year, with the event completely sold out and still sticking to the anti-corporate ethos that it was founded on. That means no big companies pushing tickets, advertising on site or even selling beer: instead it’s a family-friendly, not-for-profit love-in with healthy(ish) nosh and organic booze aplenty. It means much more than that, of course, and, as a Secret Garden newcomer, it’s intoxicating.

We enter the main area to find ourselves on the edge of a tent rather aptly labelled Where The Wild Things Are. Among its many eye-catching inhabitants are a group of self-appointed Rave Police, complete with full copper uniforms and shapes thrown so hard they’re practically offensive weapons. We start laughing, and for the next few hours, the giggles are only broken up with open-mouthed wonder at the attention to quirky detail or emphatic agreement that this has to be the greatest festival set-up ever. Ever.

Our first stop is at a small tent adorned with teddy bears, filled with lounge furniture and pumping out electro – we dance with a man dressed as a zebra and write our names on an Etch A Sketch before moving on to climb a giant hay-bale pyramid, catch a bit of The Factory’s improvised production of Hamlet and chance upon the Feast Of Fools stage as an initially serious-seeming rock outfit called Brown Star urge the crowd to point their left arms straight up and raise their right arms to the side in order to ‘tickle for love’. Again, giggles ensue. Eventually we make it to the natural amphitheatre of a main stage, where we meet a chap who lends us a lighter and, when we voice our concerns about our programme-less state, explains that ‘you can buy them, that’s not really how it works here’. Message received, we’re trot off to watch epic Connect Four matches, climb into tree house-type structures and finally stumble to our tent around 6am. 

On Saturday morning it becomes clear that the sun is as excited as us, beaming out the sort of intense heat that makes tent-based snoozing out of the question. We groggily wander to the main stage, napping through a so-so set from London zouk quintet Hush the Many before a cheeky-looking Esser wakes the place up with cockney-vocal electro-pop. Suitably revived, it’s time for another wander, this time to see the massively popular Suicide Sports, which find willing participants hurtling down a hill in prams, wheelchairs and, in the case of a few brave souls, a huge tractor tyre that invariably smashes through the hay bale buffer at the bottom, and occasionally into the lake behind it. A little further along, a mud wrestling match is just getting underway, with a reluctant girl chucked into the pit and pelting her male friend with handfuls of the sticky stuff until the pair are both completely coated and rewarded with lively applause from the onlookers.     

Next we find ourselves at the sock-wrestling championship, which, far from the jolly name, turns out to be a sweaty, hard-fought battle to get the opponent’s socks off. It’s watched by at least 100 hay-pyramid dwellers, all shouting, jeering and some even betting. After seeing an ecstatic lad take the title we’re off again, and find ourselves in a world-record attempt for the most people spooning in one place – an odd, but rather heart-warming sight. The cuddles are followed by a set from Scottish rockers Sons And Daughters; it’s perhaps a little dark for the early Saturday evening crowd but lead singer Adele Bethel gives it some welly in screamy, hot-panted style and the crowd are appreciative if a little under whelmed.

Next, it’s off to the Dance Rocks tent to see Manchester electro-dance-rock sorts The Whip send the rapidly increasing audience into a sweaty frenzy, with front man Bruce Carter climbing on speakers, hanging off a pole and repeatedly urging us to ‘do it’. Predictably, the crowd thins before the set is finished, as the almighty Grace Jones is due to start her set on the main stage. Lucky for us, then, that she turns up 45 minutes late, and after making our way through the packed crowd we get to see the whole bonkers show. Dressed in a thong, corset and stilettos the size of maypoles, Jones pouts, struts, mumbles, yells, brings girls onstage to dance with her and goes off to change outfit for every song. The music is completely secondary to the spectacle, of course, but she bewitches and bemuses in equal measure, living up to the not-to-be-missed hype that her only UK appearance was hailed with.
       
Sunday starts with a beautifully bizarre moment, as Wandsworth swing-hip-hop duo The Correspondents enthral an unfeasibly huge midday main stage crowd with a rendition of 'I Wanna Be Like You' from The Jungle Book. After that we’re delirious putty in their capable hands and the stunned pair are summoned back for a giddy encore. With only a few hours left and an urge to uncover more oddities we start exploring in the sun, this time catching a big group of men serenading a female crowd with 'I Will Survive' on The Feast Of Fools stage; a mildly terrifying lecture about health in the Conspiracy Tent and a massive game of colour war fought to the sounds of 'The Way You Make Me Feel' by Michael Jackson. Halfway into a lifeless set from Morcheeba we whiz off again, this time learning how to hula hoop from a bearded man, before realising it’s time for Lykke Li. The cute Swedish popstrel gives a pitch-perfect and sparky performance (with a tambourine, megaphone and her trademark not-quite-dance moves), getting just as much back from the crowd that she jokingly admonishes for taking too many drugs. After an encore she waves goodbye, it starts to rain a bit and we grudgingly concede that it’s time to pack up the tent and head off, with three crazy days behind us and a promise to come back next year, and hopefully every one after.
 
by Zofia Niemtus