Guilfest - Stoke Park, Guildford, Surrey - 16-18/7/04
4/5
By: Samantha Hall
The first of our notable acts to grace the sunny home-counties stages amidst this, the Surrey derivative to Glastonbury, is Simple Kid. Brown chequered, cool and distinctly aimed at the designer-wearing indie-folk, Simple Kid did not disappoint, but - troublingly - nor did he exceed. Beautiful, warm and trendily husko vocals, with a strong memorable rhythm and folksy polite aptitude, but the songs as pieces themselves verge on repetitive. To some golden chart-bounded wonders no doubt; to us, however, this is promising songwriting still yet to fully form.
The Stranglers, the next of our carefully selected 'must-sees', bared, stripped and brazen for all, howled and swayed and did whatever it is The Stranglers do (we assume it's still-brash weirdo punk - certainly, that's the assumption after the hurtling 'No More Heroes' and ever-gleaming waltz of 'Golden Brown'). But, ageing rockers have their price - frankly, the oregano and thyme stall was quite distracting.
Scottish combo The Beta Band (our real headliners of the night, although all the way over on the 'Uncut' Stage) skilfully massaged their slumber-pop into thrilling sound collages that drew on country, prog rock, and psychedelia without ever going beyond the point of kitsch; probably marking them the most eclectic act of the whole festival for it.
Their ambient beauty live recalls the mesmerizing layered vocals of Pink Floyd (as many an onlooker can be heard muttering), but tosses in a demented breakdown of electronica to throw any nostalgia-seeker off the scent. Using sampled steel drums and reggae bass-lines, Beta combine successful shamble with shuffle to cast a lazy possessed charm over the whole of Guildford. Dreamy beginnings.
Blondie's Debbie Harry, even still, remains the iconic, quintessential sex kitten. In the pit the portly, dripping photographers guffawed about her slightly protruding belly, of her bleached platinum hair and her general age/pickled state and lifestyle. Yet, Ms Harry pounded out her universal, timeless pop classics with crystal clear clarity and precision ('Heart Of Glass', 'Atomic' - you name it); she shimmied and shook with more sex appeal, bravado and pizzazz than any female frontwoman in our rock n' roll world in the past decade. An inspiration to any woman involved in rock and music performance. Her spunk, her cool. Her absolute confidence. A star, still. A luminary, the idyllic pin-up.
Saturday started our day with Lucky Jim - crusty folks, they be. Playing love assaults with such concern and heed, it's almost like they're wooing southern belles with their spongy, folksy blues (yet forgetting they're in Surrey). Our shades slip down and we gently doze along; it was a heavy one last night, after all.
So we naturally totter down the rather steep hill to the harmonious, well, dully lit at least, dance tent. Now, where's our glow-sticks...
With PVC bondage gloves, they pounced and purred around the awkward Tropical Tent. In support to the superb Plump DJs, who pounded out their famed beats with mediocre enthusiasm but massive crowd admiration, Client are the dirtiest thing to ever have come near Stoke Park and probably ever will be. The majority of punters here are not interested in the wonderful abundance of Kraftwerk mechanics and haunting Ladytron inspired vamp vocals... not even the curvatious power suit behind the voice of heaving sexual innuendo. The arena is simply a loud forum of noise for which to accompany their flailing limbs. And that's OK, but we know better.
One speciality of Guilfest, an un-expected one at that, is their famed 24-hour Ambient Lounge. A dirty, dishevelled hubble of a tent, constantly filled with incense, lounge cushions, neon glowing light and army camouflage netting. Bold stands around the edges are guarded by dedicated and passionate animal protestors, anti-Bush demonstrators, next to the new-ages selling hemp milkshakes and organic cookies. Here, various DJs spin the strangest and obscurest mixes of drum n' bass and trance electro-clash. Too hippie? The Live Stage across the way also provides a celebrated performance space for unsigned and local hot stars to wow the masses with their thing.
The Ukulele Orchestra of Britain was the most fitting, ironic and intriguing of performances to be slotted onto the main stage on a disgustingly hungover Sunday morning. Comedowns, lack of sleep and general foul-smelling grogginess don't merge well with loud sound and sunlight. But by special flight, the ukuleles, brandished and tinny in their whole glory brought the hordes out to seek their spectacular renditions of work by Led Zeppelin and Outkast, amongst others. No shit.
Pounding out the classics as we wallowed in our Kronenburg, the summer shone and, in their own nostalgic way, so did Ocean Colour Scene. Glowing rosy red and with youthful, joyful abundance they 'shook their thing'. Bright, bouncy and delightfully Britpop. Oh yes, this is how the Stereophonics should have rooted and rolled. Appealing to the suburban, middle-class hippy-dips of Guildford instead of the middle of the road, easy-listening posts of nationwide Virgin Megastores, we get inoffensive anthems galore - 'The Day We Caught The Train', 'The Riverboat Song' - and for a few very painful seconds, it seems like the mid-nineties again.
From the rhythmic, African tribal, passion-filled beats of Femi Kuti graces UB40 onto the stage. The face-painted kids start to settle down into their falafel and Mums and Dads united across the park all begin a form of worrisome parental jiggling. Not a dancehall grind, or even a reggae-slipped backbone kinda sway, but a real suburban, 'oh yes, time for some Caribbean chilled-out culture' kind of condescending slump. They play the hits including the one. 'Red Wine' goes down a storm as Guilfest closes for another impossibly chilled, content and satisfied summer.
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