REVIEW: Wychwood Festival Day 1 [Festival Fever]

REVIEW: Wychwood Festival Day 1

Posted on June 2, 2008 12:46 PM
1 comment

Wychwood Festival
Cheltenham Racecourse
Friday 30th May - Sunday 1st June

Review by Katie Spain

For some people, attending a music festival every weekend for the next three months sounds like a task from hell. To others, it’s heaven in multi-coloured wellies. During our search for the best festival out there, I’m mentally prepared for a mix of the two. I couldn’t have picked a better way to ease into the festival season than with Wychwood Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse. The bar has been raised further than expected. Here’s why:

The ‘Wychwood’ vibe hits you before you even hit the grounds. Our cab driver picks us up at Cheltenham Spa and sums up the beauty of our surroundings in one simple statement; “I came here forty years ago for a day trip and just never left”. It is indeed beautiful and as the festival grounds come into site we draw a collective breath of anticipation. It’s early Friday evening and although the carpark is heaving, there’s no queue in sight. Entry is effortless; an adjective that could sum up the entire weekend. Having fun has never been so easy. Just ask the nippers who attended the event; there’ll be some amazing tales told in classrooms nationwide this week.

For every avid festival goer, there’s one arduous task to complete before the real revelling can happen. Tent construction is a complicated caper; especially when you deal in music journalism and not the great outdoors. In our chosen spot, the tent village was faultless; a café within one-hundred metres, a flat pitching surface and shower and toilet facilities close enough to stumble to in the dark (and isolated enough to avoid nostril invasions. They were cleaned regularly too. Score one for Wychwood.

You don’t really need to know that it took one-and-a-half hours to erect our makeshift home, but as we did the sounds of Dreadzone’s set spurned us on. The crowd went wild for their mix of Reggae, Dub, Techno, Trance and Folk. There’s a good reason why John Peel liked them and if Wychwood invite them back for the third time running in 2008, I’ll sleep on the wet grass to avoid missing them.

A quick trip to the bright blue Big Top Stage revealed Kasai Masai who pumped us full of enough African beats to put a bounce in our step. It was lucky we came prepared with sturdy bras, because the jolting increased two-fold when The Proclaimers brought their Scottish charm to the Independent Stage with hits ‘I’m On My Way’, ‘Letter From America’ and ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’. The duo were always going to be a spec-clad hit and the Mexican wave of smiles proved that it’s really quite simple to entertain an eclectic mix of young and old.

At this point, the crowd either feasted on the high standard of catered food stalls, dabbled in comedy at the Wickwar Stage or topped up their alcohol intake in preparation for the Silent Disco. If you’ve never experienced the surreal act of disco dancing whilst wearing earphones, give it a go. We danced with a glitter-covered pirate. He was minus the parrot but his moves were worth a mention “Me hearty”.

Comments (1)

Ron
Hey, Katie, was that it? Couldn't you get out of your tent or did you forget your Wettex and Loo Roll? That's the Festival Season for you - great music and unending rain. Hope to read more about the music when you get to Glastonbury.
Posted on June 5, 2008 10:24 AM