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So anyway. I went to the glade on the weekend. For those of you that don't know, the glade used to be an illegal area at Glastonbury about 5 or 6 years ago. It only hosted underground electronic music, ie Autechre, Plaid, Jeff Mills, Hawtin and the like. The actual organisers of Glastonbury thought it was done so well they made it part of the main festival. However the people who organised the glade saw Glastonbury as becoming too main stream and decided to cut ties and make their own festival in a glade that is a dragonfly sanctuary about an hour out of london. It is a very pretty venue. Anyway seeing as another festival I was going to got cancelled I thought I'd check it out, so bought a tent and and sleeping bag and headed off for the weekend.
I had a pretty bad feeling it was going to be full of hippies and and neon colours and I was right. I hate that shit. Dreadlocked, smelly hippies doing yoga and talking about the moon and its cycles. One of the conversations I heard....and I shit you not happened when a group of these smelly, dreadlocked people with an identity crises basically o'd on drugs. He got taken away and his two mates sat there saying:
"You know man, I'm a goat, and your a horse....so we are like stable and stuff, but mike over there is an eagle.....so you know he gets knocked off line easily and stuff like that effects him more."
I was pretty close to kicking them in the shins and yelling "Its because you have been feeding him k and acid for the last day and he has taken far too many drugs you hippie cunts."
I also heard a guy yelling at the top of his lungs "Your rubbish!"
Assuming he was yelling at a dj I turned around to see which one and realised he was yelling at a rubbish bin.
Anyway. I saw a few acts and thought I'd give a run down.
Most of it sucked.
In fact the only good thing I saw on the first day was Ben Sims and Surgeon playing as frequency 7. They kicked ass. Ben Sims was soo much better than the other times I have seen him in Europe. In full on three deck attack mode with surgeon over the top with his lap top and some midi controllers. It was pretty full on techno stuff as you would expect, but a great performance. Plenty of exciting and inventive mixing, a few of the old hits (sims played his goodlife of course) and heaps of energy. There was hardly anyone in the tent when he started (seeing as all the dumb uk hippies like breakcore and psy trance, the two most packed tents all weekend) but by the end they had filled the place up. A really good show, and made me realise how average a lot of the djs I have been seeing lately are.
It wasn't full on relentless either. He kept on dropping it down to tracks with no beat whatsoever or a much slower pace and then ramping it back up again.
The next thing I saw was the Osaka invasion. This is four japanese acts that all played in a row. Scotch Egg, Bogulta, Ove Naxx, Maruosa.
Scotch egg makes music on gameboys. It was entertaining as hell. He was a real performer. Jumping up and down and screaming etc. The music was ok, but not really my cup of tea.
They were all pretty heavy. Some guitars and drum kits which sounded like thrash metal and some pretty heafty beats with a japanese pop princess singing over the top. They get and A for entertainment but a C for the actual music.
After that was Dub Step Maestro Distance. I really rate this guy and have his cd anyway. He is a great dj. Its the first time I have really been caught up in dubstep and had a good groove. He really played an amazing set. Started off with groovier more laid back dubstep, but by the end it was dark as all hell....and heavy. REALLY heavy. Also a fantastic dj. Lots of nice little tricks, not just the usual crossfade at the end of a track with a 2 bar beat mix like most other dub step djs I have seen.
After that was Dubfire. Stadium minimal right? Boring as fuck. Started off like he was gonna play some interesting stuff then just dropped into and what sounded like an endless, really boring, not quite minimal but driving exhibition of crapness-ness.
So I went to check out Autechre. I dunno if its just me or have these guys been taking a long a slippery reverse slide into boring over the past three years. Anyway. I got bored. It wasn't interesting at all. Just sounded like a variation on the breakcore crap I had been hearing everywhere else.
I went to check out James holden then. Also rubbish. Basically played bad slowed down trance, which I could have heard at the trance tent. His mixing was rubbish too, just to rub salt in the wound.
Next up. Jeff Mills. Now I have seen him a few times over here....and have been pretty disappointed. Not this time.
I don't think I have ever. And I say ever seen such a dazzling display of technical skill, but also mixed with real flow and groove. It wasn't just banging it out, look what I can do. It was amazing. It made hanging around the hippies seem worth it. He played in the same tent as sims, and it kinda seemed like he thought, well so you can do that right....watch this then!
It was pretty fast....not as banging as sims though. Lots of nice pianos and strings in the first half. Three decks the whole time. Scratching, spin backs, fade down to ambient tracks (one old pete namlook one even) then thru the bells, a good life edit I had never heard before, then foot down towards the end until he had the whole tent (about 5000 people) with their hands in the air. The end was stunning. He had to walk centre stage and take a bow. He was on fire. He restored my faith in him. The other times I have seen him it has just been a relentless onslaught. Technically great but boring as buggery. This time there were all sorts of tricks I had never seen him to before....but more importantly was, it had real flow. You could sit and listen to it at home and it would be nice kind of thing.
After that I left the festival. Too many smelly people.
I won't be going again. Not my cup of tea, but it was worth it for the good stuff I did see.
