Boomtown Diary
Aug. 21st, 2018 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
satyricaThursday: Once we'd set up and settled in I went down wandering and exploring with my compadres, although we stopped a couple of times on the meander and I saw quite a bit of Los Kamer at the Oldtown Port (which seemed to be the spiritual home of such swing/jazz/balkansy offerings) as well as the end of Gasper Nali, an impressive Malawian dude playing a babatoni at the Bandstand. I came back there by myself shortly afterwards to watch Razzomo, a two-piece subset of Mr. Tea & the Minions who played up-tempo balkansy and folk instrumentals. Later on I made it down to the lower level of the city (where I spent a lot less time) to see indie-punk provocateurs ("we're the middle-class Sleaford Mods") Idles with J, who were one of the main bands I had been keen to catch and were great. We carried on wandering around for a while but all the music finished at 12 so in the end we wandered back to camp, J talking to everyone and anyone as is his wont.
Friday: We managed to get it together on Friday to head down to the Lions Den arena to see the festival's official kick-off with a DJ called Shy FX; musically it was the whole side of the festival that I had no idea about but it was pretty chilled out and I hung around for a bit before wandering by a rather overcircuitous route back to the Bandstand just in time to see Imperial Leisure kick off with their reliably exuberant ska. Sadly the rain also increased its exuberance and about halfway through their set [pretty much everyone got an hour, whoever they were] the floor of the bandstand was getting flooded and they had to stop their set: it was hammering down and we beat a disappointed retreat to our camp.
After hanging out for a while, I headed back out by myself and managed to see Rev Schneider & the Band of Angels performing their snake-hipped sleazy-Southern-preacher themed country rock, which is reliably fun, and then stumbled upon Elvana, a Nirvana covers band fronted by an Elvis impersonator, at the Town Square, who I unashamedly danced along to.
I had to leave before the end to head up to Whistlers Green, Boomtown's Green Fields equivalent, to meet back up with the others at the Windmill Stage and see Ron's recommendation, Too Many Zooz, a toe-tapping instrumental trio from New York consisting of a trumpeter, a percussionist and a man playing the largest saxophone I have ever seen. I carried on trawling around with J and Tom for a bit but hadn't been feeling great and my initial plan to retreat to the tent 'for a bit' turned into curling up and staying there for the rest of the evening and all through the night. It was the right decision because I felt a lot better the next day but I was pretty sad to have missed out on Coco & the Butterfields (who I haven't been able to catch for ages) as well as the Pride Punx crew doing some late-night DJing, not least as it was one of only two nights that the music went on properly late.
Saturday: Saturday was the best day, the weather held out all day and I was feeling at full strength again. We started with quite a long trawl around the site as a group (I managed to get sunburnt lying out after breakfast during the only fifteen minutes of proper sunshine we got all weekend), we stopped to see a bit of music at the Flying Lotus up in Whistler's Green but otherwise just had a really long wander altogether before heading back to camp. The others all eventually crashed out but I got restless and headed out again to see Molotov Jukebox's sparky electro-swing at the Town Square then went on another wander, catching bits of one-dude-and-guitar Sean McGowan at the Bandstand, My Octopus Mind in Rimski's Yard, the Dirty Bourbon River Show ("New Orleans Big Brass Circus Rock") at Oldtown Port and ska classics The Selecter at the Town Square.
The nearest thing Boomtown had to a headliner was Gorillaz and I dutifully headed over to Lions Den to see them: all kinds of special guests were wheeled out and I did enjoy the set, although (like many people) I was mostly holding out for the couple of songs I know and, looking back, nothing else they played really caught my imagination. My memory gets pretty hazy for the rest of the night although my photos suggest I definitely saw more ska in the form of Millie Manders at The Skankin and I know that I danced for a while in the Little Gay Brother before making it back to Oldtown Port to watch funky Plymouth favourites Land of the Giants. I headed up back to camp in search of the others and found Ben and Tom hanging out with a Brummie guy camped nearby and we sat and chatted as people came and went until finally crashing sometime after 4.
Sunday: The last day was when I had the most bands I knew playing and, after hanging out with the others in the morning, I managed to rouse myself to go down to see Will Varley at the Old Mine; I was pleased to see that he seemed to have moved much more towards straightforward folk than his (not so) comic songs since the last time I saw him and I was back at the same stage with the others to see the start of Beans on Toast. I left halfway through to pop round the corner where Gaz Brookfield was due to start playing, however there was no sign of him and it turned out he hadn't come (the soundman said that he had apparently had a "hissy fit" over a rescheduled set time although his Facebook page cited a back problem that stopped him getting out of bed), so I headed back to see the rest of Beans on Toast.
I did get to see Mr Tea & the Minions back over at the Oldtown Port but they came on just as the drizzle was intensifying so a rather reduced crowd did our dancing in waterproofs and wellies. At this point my phone finally died, having exhausted all the portable-charging the group had brought with us: I took it to a pay-to-charge place but when I came back two hours later they hadn't connected it properly and it was no better off so I had to leave it still longer. In the meantime I wandered back to the Rusty Spurs and caught Harry Jordan, female-fronted Brummie-based rock&rollers, who were a lot of fun, then briefly reunited with J to see some of reggae-legend Jimmy Cliff at the Lions Den.
My next disaster was that I had written the set time down wrong for Tankus the Henge so turned up at the Oldtown Port to find I'd missed half their set. What remained was every ounce of the energy and showmanship that I love about them, though. I ended up seeing out the festival down at the Psy Forest and getting into the spirit of the side of the festival I hadn't really explored by joining the crowd dancing away to techno. The music all came to a stop at twelve and, although people carried on careening around on their own personal missions, I didn't hang out for long back at camp before crashing.
Monday: The guys eventually managed to get themselves going pretty early in morning, trudging off to start the drive home, but my coach wasn't until 10.30, which was just as well since I was moving pretty slowly as I took everything down and trudged back over the hills to the coach gate. I was home by lunchtime (so much easier to get back from than those tortuous Glastonbury coach journeys) but dozed the afternoon away before N came over in the evening. It was nice again and we ended up wandering out and walking up through Hampstead, grabbing a drink at the Old Bull & Bush, then meandering home again, which was all remarkably pleasant.
Friday: We managed to get it together on Friday to head down to the Lions Den arena to see the festival's official kick-off with a DJ called Shy FX; musically it was the whole side of the festival that I had no idea about but it was pretty chilled out and I hung around for a bit before wandering by a rather overcircuitous route back to the Bandstand just in time to see Imperial Leisure kick off with their reliably exuberant ska. Sadly the rain also increased its exuberance and about halfway through their set [pretty much everyone got an hour, whoever they were] the floor of the bandstand was getting flooded and they had to stop their set: it was hammering down and we beat a disappointed retreat to our camp.
After hanging out for a while, I headed back out by myself and managed to see Rev Schneider & the Band of Angels performing their snake-hipped sleazy-Southern-preacher themed country rock, which is reliably fun, and then stumbled upon Elvana, a Nirvana covers band fronted by an Elvis impersonator, at the Town Square, who I unashamedly danced along to.
I had to leave before the end to head up to Whistlers Green, Boomtown's Green Fields equivalent, to meet back up with the others at the Windmill Stage and see Ron's recommendation, Too Many Zooz, a toe-tapping instrumental trio from New York consisting of a trumpeter, a percussionist and a man playing the largest saxophone I have ever seen. I carried on trawling around with J and Tom for a bit but hadn't been feeling great and my initial plan to retreat to the tent 'for a bit' turned into curling up and staying there for the rest of the evening and all through the night. It was the right decision because I felt a lot better the next day but I was pretty sad to have missed out on Coco & the Butterfields (who I haven't been able to catch for ages) as well as the Pride Punx crew doing some late-night DJing, not least as it was one of only two nights that the music went on properly late.
Saturday: Saturday was the best day, the weather held out all day and I was feeling at full strength again. We started with quite a long trawl around the site as a group (I managed to get sunburnt lying out after breakfast during the only fifteen minutes of proper sunshine we got all weekend), we stopped to see a bit of music at the Flying Lotus up in Whistler's Green but otherwise just had a really long wander altogether before heading back to camp. The others all eventually crashed out but I got restless and headed out again to see Molotov Jukebox's sparky electro-swing at the Town Square then went on another wander, catching bits of one-dude-and-guitar Sean McGowan at the Bandstand, My Octopus Mind in Rimski's Yard, the Dirty Bourbon River Show ("New Orleans Big Brass Circus Rock") at Oldtown Port and ska classics The Selecter at the Town Square.
The nearest thing Boomtown had to a headliner was Gorillaz and I dutifully headed over to Lions Den to see them: all kinds of special guests were wheeled out and I did enjoy the set, although (like many people) I was mostly holding out for the couple of songs I know and, looking back, nothing else they played really caught my imagination. My memory gets pretty hazy for the rest of the night although my photos suggest I definitely saw more ska in the form of Millie Manders at The Skankin and I know that I danced for a while in the Little Gay Brother before making it back to Oldtown Port to watch funky Plymouth favourites Land of the Giants. I headed up back to camp in search of the others and found Ben and Tom hanging out with a Brummie guy camped nearby and we sat and chatted as people came and went until finally crashing sometime after 4.
Sunday: The last day was when I had the most bands I knew playing and, after hanging out with the others in the morning, I managed to rouse myself to go down to see Will Varley at the Old Mine; I was pleased to see that he seemed to have moved much more towards straightforward folk than his (not so) comic songs since the last time I saw him and I was back at the same stage with the others to see the start of Beans on Toast. I left halfway through to pop round the corner where Gaz Brookfield was due to start playing, however there was no sign of him and it turned out he hadn't come (the soundman said that he had apparently had a "hissy fit" over a rescheduled set time although his Facebook page cited a back problem that stopped him getting out of bed), so I headed back to see the rest of Beans on Toast.
I did get to see Mr Tea & the Minions back over at the Oldtown Port but they came on just as the drizzle was intensifying so a rather reduced crowd did our dancing in waterproofs and wellies. At this point my phone finally died, having exhausted all the portable-charging the group had brought with us: I took it to a pay-to-charge place but when I came back two hours later they hadn't connected it properly and it was no better off so I had to leave it still longer. In the meantime I wandered back to the Rusty Spurs and caught Harry Jordan, female-fronted Brummie-based rock&rollers, who were a lot of fun, then briefly reunited with J to see some of reggae-legend Jimmy Cliff at the Lions Den.
My next disaster was that I had written the set time down wrong for Tankus the Henge so turned up at the Oldtown Port to find I'd missed half their set. What remained was every ounce of the energy and showmanship that I love about them, though. I ended up seeing out the festival down at the Psy Forest and getting into the spirit of the side of the festival I hadn't really explored by joining the crowd dancing away to techno. The music all came to a stop at twelve and, although people carried on careening around on their own personal missions, I didn't hang out for long back at camp before crashing.
Monday: The guys eventually managed to get themselves going pretty early in morning, trudging off to start the drive home, but my coach wasn't until 10.30, which was just as well since I was moving pretty slowly as I took everything down and trudged back over the hills to the coach gate. I was home by lunchtime (so much easier to get back from than those tortuous Glastonbury coach journeys) but dozed the afternoon away before N came over in the evening. It was nice again and we ended up wandering out and walking up through Hampstead, grabbing a drink at the Old Bull & Bush, then meandering home again, which was all remarkably pleasant.
