Secret Garden Party Abbots Ripton, Huntingdon 23-26/7/09
4/5
By: Ellie Rose
Outlandish costumes, an eclectic range of music, and let’s face it, probably bucketloads of acid – the Secret Garden Party is well known as a haven for the wacky, the weird and the flagrantly hippy. It’s won bloody awards for it.
A party-hard festival with a cheery vibe, I thought SGP might stray into the hated domain of irritatingly happy – but it somehow manages to pull off all the fun in the world without alienating the prudishly un-spiritual (like me); and after four days spent in a muddy field festooned with flags, ferris wheels and art installations, I think I’ve cracked the mystery of the boutique festival’s unique charm. It’s less about the music, and more about the party; less to do with spectating, and more to do with participating; in short, it’s a f**king good laugh.
[PHOTO COPYRIGHT SAM PEARCE]
Set in the depths of rural Cambridgeshire, the location of SGP is idyllic. As we wound our way through the lanes of little Huntingdon towards the festival site, our friendly local taxi driver (who admittedly looked like something out of the League of Gentlemen) told us that a local estate owner offers up the grounds of his Georgian farm house once a year, providing the picturesque spread of landscaped gardens, river and lake that become the temporary home of thousands of festival-goers annually. Nice of him, I thought.
Not only is the festival beautifully set, though – it’s well thought out and brilliantly planned, too. Having founded the event in 2004, the SGP folk pride themselves on having the widest range and the largest quantity of entertainment per pound of festival ticket-price, and have a reputation for billing all kinds of bizarre attractions. This year, guests were invited to row gaily about the lake, get down and dirty in mud-wrestling matches, and/or flail their limbs hilariously around in one of the numerous staged dance-offs. Combine that with a main stage shaped like a snake’s mouth, an inspired Babylon and Eden fancy-dress theme and an exploding Tower of Babylon, and you’ll begin to get the picture of the eccentric genius at the heart of this relatively small-scale event.
[PHOTO COPYRIGHT SAM PEARCE]
The other attraction, of course, was the music. Although SGP doesn’t boast the same blockbusting line-up as the juggernaut festivals – Glastonbury, Bestival and the like – there were some real gems on the bill. The bigger names included Jarvis Cocker, Rodrigo y Gabriella, VV Brown, Peter Green and Friends, and Emiliana Torrini. The daytimes primarily featured sit-down-and-cider indie-folk bands, whereas the evenings transformed the laid-back atmosphere into a more up-beat, danceable affair.
Up-and-coming folk-blues heroes Peggy Sue were a particular daytime highlight, playing on both Saturday and Sunday in tents that were busy enough to feel exciting, but not overcrowded. It was nice to have some elbow room to dance: when these popular chaps hit the Camden Crawl in April, you’d have been lucky to get in the door. The Peggy Sue pack were on top form, conjuring spine-tingling harmonies through a haunting set of whining strings and ringing vocals. On Sunday, singer Rosa Rex joined in the SGP spirit by gracing the stage in a tiger costume, which added some cheer to an otherwise slightly melancholy affair.
[NOAH AND THE WHALE - PHOTO COPYRIGHT ANDY WILLSHER]
Popular anti-folksters Noah and the Whale gave a somewhat disappointing performance, however, with Charlie Fink’s normally brilliant vocal stylings dampened by a recent case of flu. The four-piece had clearly plumped for the ‘show must go on’ attitude in the face of illness, but plodded through popular feel-good track Five Years’ Time without the vim and/or vigour for which they’re known.
[SLOW CLUB - PHOTO COPYRIGHT ANDY WILLSHER]
But this disappointment was more than made up for by a surprising and energetic set from loveable Sheffieldian folk-pop duo, Slow Club, whose eloquent, breezy tunes made for a quirky and fun experience, as well as a hotly anticipated appearance by Emmy the Great. Touching, cheeky, and moving by turns, Emmy whipped a modest day-time crowd into a jig-dancing frenzy, proving that yes, she truly is pretty great (alright, so you saw that one coming… well done you).
[EMMY THE GREAT - PHOTO COPYRIGHT ANDY WILLSHER]
The night-time, dance aspect of the festival was beset by one or two disappointments. The increasingly popular Toddla T, originally billed for the climax of Sunday night, pulled out, and the evening lost a little momentum as a result – particularly considering the sound level restrictions that meant the main tents were closed down before 12pm that night. But despite this, SGP continued in the minor tents scattered across the festival site – the chill-out haven Small World, for example, from which I watched dozens of lit-up Chinese lanterns waft upwards into the quiet Cambridgeshire night.
[PHOTO COPYRIGHT SAM PEARCE]
It was my first SGP, and since rolling out of the festival site sleep-deprived but cheery at 9am last Monday, I have to admit that I’m now harbouring withdrawal symptoms from the almost magically friendly atmosphere. Sprinkled with fun-lovers, hippies and all manner of loveable ne’er-do-well, this is the kind of festival where you can talk to other guests around campfires and not secretly wish they’d shut up or go away. Because there are no real blockbusters on the bill, you can be assured that the sorts of wankers that show up at Glastonbury just to see Blur won’t bother: it’s like a real-life fairy tale.
Artists in this article: Noah & The Whale, Peggy Sue, Slow Club, Emmy The Great
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