Blissfields Festival - Bradley Farm, Arlesford 2-4-/7/10
4/5
By: Mike Harounoff
All photos by Rob Hall
The ‘Second Date’, we’ve all been there. You took him/her out before and it was perfect: you listened to great music, enjoyed each other’s company, ate good food, got pretty trashed, slept together and then walked away thinking that you may just be in love. Great.
Then the phone rings, he/she wants to meet up again. What if it all goes wrong? The perfect memory of a wonderful time could be tarnished beyond repair, that warm feeling in the pit of your stomach and the grin you cannot help never to return again. Although, you have to say ‘yes’ - think of the possibilities! The happiness you could have together! Something real. Something true.
Having said all this, my date wasn’t actually with a woman at all, nor a man, but Blissfield’s Festival. Wanna know how it went, all the juicy details? Of course you do.
Here’s a bit of background on Blissfields, just so you know what we’re dealing with here. Founded in 2001 at Bradley Farm, Hampshire, Blissfields is a past winner of the ‘Best Small Festival’ in the UK Festival Awards and notable previous guests include Mystery Jets, Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons and Super Furry Animals. In case you were wondering about capacity, it’s 1,000 - making it smaller than Camden’s KOKO.
In context of Blissfields being my date, Blissfields is a total babe, who hangs out with the right people and doesn’t sleep around – Glastonbury’s a total whore. 177,000 people!
There’s something about Blissfields that immediately makes you feel at home, no unnecessarily rough security checks on your way, nonexistent cues and friendly faces from staff and festival goers alike. Camping’s unnervingly easy - you know when shit that’s usually difficult just so happens to be really simple and it kind of weird’s you out? This often happens to me when looking for items in the designated ‘draw of crap’ at home. It’s usually batteries. They’re often at the back, but sometimes they’re right at the front on top of something.
Anyway, setting up is fine. Everyone’s real cool about letting you borrow mallets to hammer in tent pegs and such. I believe gestures likes this are very important at festivals. If you think about it, you’re attempting to survive in a field for three days - this situation can be made a lot easier by having friendly neighbours surrounding you.
So, the people are great and all your stuff’s set up to the best of your physical ability. It’s time to wander around the festival keeping an eye open for environments, people and future situations that could occur when combining the two in a haze of some sort later on in the evening. This is made far easier when the festival site can be crossed in about 15 minutes - to embark on a mission like this at say Reading Festival would definitely involved all of the following and possibly more: a parachute, skis, a golf buggy, a camel, a surf board and roller blades. I think the point I’m trying to make here is that there’s a certain knowing simplicity at the heart of the festival, there’s no attempt here to make things difficult for the sake of expansion and to appear more interesting – bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better and this something Blissfields has clearly taken into account.
It could be said one thing that suffers from this attitude is the music but I feel this is dependent on what you seek from a from a festival. Blissfields is not necessarily a music festival, it’s more a festival in the spirit in which is does things a relaxed party vibe an escape from reality and in many cases normality. Yes, big and hype bands don’t adorn the line up and this could suggest a disinterest in music, the more cynical of individuals could even attempt to claim this to be due to lack of music knowledge. This is certainly not the case. Blissfields organisers have found the perfect way to soundtrack their own personal utopia of which for three days a year us city dwellers are privy too. This year had some true gems.
Imperial Leisure get things going on Friday, the inimitable brand of ska punk and raw energy knocking a pretty tipsy Blissfields crowd for six. Subgiant took the opening night headlining role, perhaps a good example of Blissfields pulling power, and make it look easy. The sun now finally tucked away behind the moon, Subgiant’s set spans trance dub and drum & bass turning Blissfields into the proper party. It’s moments like this the community vibe of the festival really pays dividends – all 1,000 people are here to see this and all of them are dancing, and most importantly everyone’s dancing together.
Saturday sees legends Stereo Mc’s take the stage, one of those bands you’ve heard even if you don’t know it. Blending together acid jazz, trip hop and hip-hop. Hold up, I know what you’re thinking – I mean not to be presumptuous and excuse me if I’m wrong but perhaps Rockfeedback’s readers aren’t necessarily into ‘Acid Trip Hip Jazz Hop’ – however, something about Blissfields means this doesn’t matter, the music compliments the atmosphere which equals people quite simply having a good time.
So, if you were wondering how this second date went well, we’re seeing each other again. Same time next year, and if I’m being honest with you I can’t wait.
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