It’s easy to become trapped in the responsibilities of adult hood. Deadlines and coffee dates, schedules that start reading like sentences the more you add to them. 8:00 wake up 9:00 meeting 10:00 – 18:00 work 19:00 dinner 21:00 pub for one 22:00 check emails. Your life becomes reduced to a tedious list that leaves you stuck in the monotony of time. To break free, enter a world where the only time that matters is when the music stops playing.
An experience.
Responsibilities disappear when you are camping in a field for three days with all your mates. Schedules become replaced by ‘should we have another beer?’, mornings are announced through the rise of the sun not the ringing of an alarm. This festival was run by someone who understands that. Kesh is staple in the Bristol music scene, a person who everyone knows, or wants to know. His reputation as a curator of good times has spread throughout the UK, culminating in a festival that didn’t reveal its lineup until you arrived. Anyone who knew kesh or had been to one of his events believed in his ability to create an experience and attended the festival with blind faith.
Those who did were rewarded with a massive playground for grownups. ‘there’s a lake to swim in, trees to climb and hills to roly poly down’ reads the headfast write up. A festival created by adults who understand the importance of being a kid. I saw people having water gun fights in the lake, doing headstands on the hills , gossiping in constructed tree houses. After it rained everyone danced in the mud with cheeky smiles and bare feet, grey skyes couldn’t drown out the ecstatic feeling rumbling through the air. Here was a space where the mediocracy of maturity didn’t exist, instead, silliness was celebrated.
The organisers created an environment were people weren’t afraid to play , in a way that completely rejected the they experienced in their 9-5s. It felt like for a whole weekend you had received a hall pass to cheat on being an adult and embrace the inner child that is waiting to dance free. On the last day I complimented a guy on his purple skirt ‘ ive never worn one before’ he replied ‘but I think im going to wear one every Sunday now’. where you felt comfortable expressing yourself , in the way that you dressed , the conversations you had with other people even how you danced. Its smaller size, around 2,000 people, created a feeling of comradery , helped by the fact that most people had been drawn from the underground music scenes found in Bristol or Brighton. Following my friend around it felt like every ten minutes he was stopping to chat to someone that he knew. But the beautiful thing was ,despite my outsider status, by the end of the weekend I was doing the same.
People make a place, and an experience provided many places for you to meet people. There was a boozer with cold beer on tap and a piano in the corner. Similar to your local it was a quick walk away and you could always find someone who wanted a chat. Its wonky wooden walls and charity shopped art collection made for space that felt familiar while also being a novelty due to its location in a paddock. If the pub was closed you could always go to the gaff, A hip place that felt like it had been pulled straight from the café lined streets of brighton. Persian rugs thrown on the floor, grandmas old couch in the corner and alternative jazz playing from the speakers, the gaff became one of the go to kick on spots. When the music stopped it opened, providing free tea to weary people who wanted to sit but weren’t quite ready to sleep. By the end of the weekend they had gone through over 2,000 yorkshire tea bags, the unofficial fuel of the party.
Despite these inner-city inspired playground pieces the real focus of the festival was the sound. One of the first pages in the programme details the Soundsystem’s on offer . like a dedication at the beginning of a book it outlines the festivals inspiration, paying homage to the origins of UK party culture. Each system had its own personality , complete with followers who would obligingly listen to whatever music emanated from its subs.
In the ruffaton stage each of Scotland yards stacks had been strategically placed in one of the four corners of the garden gazebo, But this garden had been overrun by jungle , the sounds of breakbeat and drum and bass shaking its canvas walls all weekend. Standing in the middle you were surrounded by pulsating sound, creating an illusion of weightlessness that was reinforced by the vinyl chandeliers hanging over head
Pangea was a utopic escape hidden within the forest , like the super continent it occupied a world of its own, and played music from all around the world. Once, inside you felt like a bee that had finally found the hive, White daisies hung over head dropping beams of pollen onto the crowd bellow who were buzzing from the sounds of Sinani. You could feel the bass coming from the speakers through the wood chipped floors. I spent most of my time here , basking in the novelty of dancing under a forest with other woodland creatures.
Downbeat melody was the sound system your parents would have used at a free party. years etched into its wooden cases, set up in a tepi, dancing there felt like a ceremonial experience , where you would gather in a circular fashion and worship the legends of Soundsystem culture. Its location next to the lake meant that it provided the perfect start to the day , and cure for the night before. On Saturday I was swimming in the lake when I guy turns to me and says ‘put your ears under the water’ I obliged and was mesmerized by the bassy sound that you could still hear submerged under the surface.
The sound systems were the focus of the festival , maybe at the expense of things like clean toilets and varied food options, but when you were in front of the speaker participating in the timeless ritual of dance these things seemed to not matter so much. many even chose to ignore the lineup after it was available, trusting that wherever they ended up the music would be good. Timetables and schedules were rejected for a weekend of beautiful abandonment, people basked in the lack of distraction, attempting to limit all reminders of the outside world. Phones were left in tents or forgotten about in bags , everyone too consumed by the moment to worry about the outside world
Like the cardboard Stone circle it was a bit hastily constructed and by the end of the weekend things were slowly falling apart. But there was beauty to be found in its duct taped chaos, A rejection of the idea that things have to last. Moments can be fleeting but that doesn’t make them any less important. One of my favorite memories is of the last night. The music finished early – around 10:30 but the punters were unwilling to accept the lack of sound and so found ways to create their own. Pool tables were pushed to the edge and people started stomping on timber decking , you could see groups dancing to speakers or swaying to the rhythm of their own conversations. In the live-in camping people had gathered around bell tents or next to vans trying to find the illusive mini rigs . I ended up around the campfire during the arly hours of the morning, there were a few of us gathered around whatever heat was left. Some folks had assembled a makeshift Soundsystem out of hay and soggy cardboard and people had started dancing in front of it , keeping the spirit of sound alive.
On the final night kesh confessed to the audience how this festival was his childhood dream. We had been invited as friends to participate in the imagination of someone who is really a big kid. It was organized by people who don’t necessary run festivals but have attended enough to understand what makes a good one. During his closing set, in-between thank yous’s and crowd surfing, kesh also encouraged people to buy a t-shirt. Being both small independent an experience was definitely not financially profitable, there’s speculation that it may have even lost money, dreams growing beyond the limits imposed on small festivals. Despite the challenges it is facing I have faith that it will be on again next year because of the people, and the way that it allowed you to become the curator of your own experience
