Created with flickr slideshow.
GuilFest is a 3 day festival that takes place each year Guildford's Stoke Park, It attracts up to 20,000 people each day and boasts 6 live arenas, holding a variety of acts including: Motorhead, Brian Wilson, Athlete, Toploader, The lightening Seeds, Pendulum, Rusko, Will Young, The Happy Mondays, The Wailers and Goldie Lookin' Chain just to name a few!
In 2006 it was voted 'Best Family festival' of the year in the 'UK Festivals Award' and in my opinion this year was no different, it was a perfect family festival which also catered for the underground taste.
When I first arrived I thought I would have a walk around each area to see what was on offer, I was happy to see a real mix of arenas including a comedy tent, a theatre, The Funky End tent hosting dance DJs and acts a 70's disco tent and the Rock Sound Cave Stage caught my ear because as I approached it the bass was reverberating through me even before i got in the tent, it was packed out and very hot but with the clarity and power of the sound system and the line up expected I could see why this was already very busy. Walking around it was good to see trading stools selling a huge variety of food/drink, clothes and other festival gear and I quickly got roped into buying a police hat, well it did kind of go with my black and white checked outfit i guess!
I wandered into the 70's disco tent which was really fun playing lots of ska, funk, and popular music from that time period, there was a lovely happy vibe with people singing along to all the classics and was nice to also see children happily having a little boogie to the funky tunes as well.
JB Conspiracy were playing on the main stage on the friday, they consist of 7 members and are a local band that play a mixture of Ska, Punk and Rock. JBC had the audience skanking away to their lively Ska songs they were full of energy and with such a large group it made thier songs sound rich with instruments as they played saxophones, electric guitars, trumpets and drums, exactly all you would want from a Ska band! there wasn't the biggest audience for this as this was the first day of the festival but everyone who was there was smiling and happy dancing away.
http://www.myspace.com/thejbconspiracy
The Funky End Dance Tent was bigger and better than last year and was heaving through the many good dance acts that were playing throughout, a definite highlight for me was being by the stage at one point and turning around, looking behind me and seeing a few hundred strong crowd cheering on a little boy that must have been about 7 or 8 that was break dancing away to the techno set, he quickly got rushed onto stage and the whole adoring crowd ran forward right to the front where he danced for the rest of the set, it was amazing to see how someone so young could get a whole crowd of people dancing like that.
KiZmiT played on the Unison stage, they are a fairly new up and coming five piece Indie/Rock band from the Portsmouth area, I heard them as I was walking past and thought they sounded good so checked out the rest of their set, they were fun songs and I really enjoyed their performance it was just a bit of a shame that there wasn't more people up and dancing.
http://www.myspace.com/kizmit
By the time Toploader came on it was starting to rain but the few thousand strong crowd didn't let that bother them and erupted when 'Dancing in the moon light' was played, then they went on to play further classics like 'Achilles Heel' and 'Just Hold On' mixed in with a few new songs to give the crowd a taster of what's to come in the future. Toploader have just reformed after 5 years apart and are hoping to have a new album out for 2010.
http://www.myspace.com/toploaderuk
next up was Indie band Athlete, the rain cleared up for a bit for them. The set had quite a chilled out vibe to it and had the crowd swaying away to their songs, they played a mix of old and new material, with the crowd singing along to one of their well known songs Wires, I didn't stay for the whole of their set but what I did see was good and the crowd was huge.
http://www.myspace.com/athlete
Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys was another highlight for me, he had a large backing band supporting him and they played loads of old songs like Fun Fun Fun, Good Vibrations and I Get Around.
I found it amusing that seeing as Brian is from California and the songs he sings are about summer and being in the sun, it seemed to ironically to bring out the heaviest rain of the day, still once again this didn't bother the festival goers one bit, the songs were uplifting and a perfect end to the main stage for the night.
http://www.brianwilson.com/
Being mostly into dance music I spent a lot of my time in the dance tent which had amazing vibes and the Funktion One speakers sounded crisp, clear and loud, as they should. Unfortunately I missed Chris Liberator's set but was told that it was banging and he played lots of amazing old Acid Techno and the tent got so hot that there was steam literally pouring out of the back of it, people were going so mental to his music that they were having to chuck water at the crowd from the front to cool them down and this was the same for the Pendulum set.
http://www.myspace.com/chrisliberator
http://www.myspace.com/pendulum
Camping 4/5
Venue 4/5
Atmosphere 5/5
Sound systems 5/5
Food/Drink 5/5
|
Comment by GUEST on 2009-07-16 07:04:56
Nice review where are the photos ? |
|
|
Featured 
