Best Festival Ever (Non-Music Related)

[Ground Elder]

A couple of weeks, looking for a rave after joining a convoy somewhere outside Stroud, we ended up at a little travellers do in the Forest of Dean. Possibly called the Forest Fayre? (I've looked on t'internet for evidence to back this up and failed) All I remember is how tame it was compared to Castlemorton

The Forest Fayre was the week before Castlemorton. In an attempt to stop the Avon Free festival taking place lots of sites around Bristol were evicted and people pushed over the bridge into Wales and onto the Forest Fayre site, to the displeasure of the festival organisors and the Welsh police.

Castlemorton heh? Sleeping under buses, swimming at dawn, crusties throwing their dogs through the hatch of my mate's veggie burger van, peoples' courts and instant punishment, city kids tagging the hippies' buses, civilisation ends here, make some fucking noise, I wish they'd fucking shut up, streams of headlights coming up the hill every night, jumpers for goal posts and so on.

Treworgey was much the same but with added poisonous red dust.

 

[christonabike]

I loved the first Megadog festy at Lizard Point

Ace it was

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

that's cos cornwall always has the best festies innit? treworgey, elephant fayre, megadog @ the lizard, there was that hawkwind/travellers things down penzance, helston music fair, um.....you get the picture

 

[Tort]

Treworgey was fantastic but to be perfectly honest I can remember virtually fuck all about it! We scored some alarmingly good acid on the first night from one of the traveller buses and it all went haywire from there. The toilets all blocked up virtually from the off so everybody ended up shitting in the woods. The only mainstage bands I remember seeing were Climax Blues Band and Nik Turner. Hawkwind played on the back of a lorry but I was so spangled I convinced myself that my elbow had grown roots into the ground so I couldn't get up to watch them! I did discover dance music that weekend however. Never understood what the fuss was before until somebody drove a big Merc van into the middle of the site, set up some decks & played Acid House til dawn. I just remember having a big hands-in-the-air moment & thinking "Ah right - now I get it!"

 

[Tort]

or to have been at reading for nirvana.

That definitely gets my vote for the WORST festival I've ever been to!

 

[Voley]

I heard about a guy pounding a stick into the ground there, claiming he was giving the Earth much needed acupuncture.

He was 'relieving geopathic stress', apparently. Han's got the programme - it's fucking genius. Also contains such gems as 'Sunbird will be spiralling us into his cosmic mystery.'



Tort - I'm the same about Treworgey. A lot of the things Geoff mentions aren't ringing any bells at all. Even the photos! I can remember seeing The Trojans somewhere (possibly my first Glastonbury in 1986) and can recall the main man getting lost in the crowd but I don't think that was Treworgey. All I can remember about that festival is tripping my tits off for three days, seeing Loop and Hawkwind, hearing all sorts of weird rumours about how the police were about to shut the place down / how The Cure were the special guests / how the farmer had stiffed everyone big-time / how the end of the world was nigh etc.

"If you can remember it, you weren't there, maaaaaan".

 

[Ground Elder]

I've got a silver trombone

hawkwind/travellers things down penzance

The story behind this one is that Penzance Town Council were duped into allowing it to go ahead as they thought it was going to be some kind of genteel fete and that Hawkwind were a brass band The park and ride car park got squatted and turned into site for a few months.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

you remember it? it was at the time when national news bulletins were full of worried stories about the peace convoy heading down south. and long rock was over-run with crusties and brew crew and local youth having a whale of a time

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Midday Mooners, for the eclipse in Cornwall, '99.

Madness from start to finish, especially the bit with the riot police, and getting on the front page of the Daily Mail the next day was a nice touch.

Best party ever

http://www.hardcorecarvers.co.uk/festival/middaymooner99.html

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/cubist/340/

 

[mr steev]

I officially sulk at anyone who made it to Treworgey ...

Likewise. I have some mates who went and whenever it's mentioned their reaction is something like the laughing you would do if you had been involved in some crazy accident but come out without a scratch and phrases like 'woah!' and 'fucking hell!'

I missed Castlemorton too... we were all set to go in my mate's mum's car (his folks had gone on holiday) But his mum had the audacity to take her car keys with her!

Met a few of Spiral Tribe a bit after when they were up in court over it in Wolverhampton... they just made me wish we'd made it all the more

 

[moose]

We used to go to a very fine festival that I think was in Fishguard. No toilets, just a pile of spades on the edge of the woods, lots of drugs and travellers dance 'tent' (tarp between 2 buses)

 

[The_Reverend_M]

If you were born in 1978 you weren't old enough to have been at castlemorton, or to have been at reading for nirvana.

instead my generation got britpop and then nu-metal.

whoop de fucking doo.

*nods in bitter agreement*

 

[pagan]

Various Deptford Urban Free Festivals and the Hackney Homeless Peoples' Festival (early nineties). Glastonburies 1994 and 1995

I think I have to agree with you there Will. Unfortunately I missed Stonehenge, Treworgy, Elephant and Castlemorton due to being young, skint and trapped in Scotland but HH and UFF were just the best type of inner city mayhem! Can you imagine them allowing that sort of party in Stokie or New Cross these days?
93, 94, 95 were my holy trinity of Glasto's with 95 perhaps getting the edge (only Glasto I've been to single but I think my all time best was my first Burning Man in 02 Nothing is quite the same after Burning Man!

 

[Giles]

My favourite has to be a big outdoor multi-rig party near a tiny village called "Inkpen" around summer 2002.

It was called the "Elven Moon Moot" and was a triumph of organisation, getting loads of rigs and people there and the whole thing set up without the cops getting wind until it was well underway.

Giles..

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I think I have to agree with you there Will. Unfortunately I missed Stonehenge, Treworgy, Elephant and Castlemorton due to being young, skint and trapped in Scotland but HH and UFF were just the best type of inner city mayhem! Can you imagine them allowing that sort of party in Stokie or New Cross these days?
93, 94, 95 were my holy trinity of Glasto's with 95 perhaps getting the edge (only Glasto I've been to single but I think my all time best was my first Burning Man in 02 Nothing is quite the same after Burning Man!

Yes, UFF's were very good indeed, and i certainly enjoyed the HH festies as well. The latter got fucked up when the cops attacked loads of people quite randomly outside the white horse pub, never quite sure why the Deptford festie stopped, used to love that journey down thru the foot tunnel and then full-on madness of peckham dole house dayz

 

[JTG]

Womad the other year. It was mad, they had people with three wheeled buggies and everything.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Yuppie!!!!





(i haven't heard that word for ages )

 

[JTG]

I can't imagine anything more insane than Womad tbh

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

This one, because my kid's working at it as a model.

http://www.shambhalamusicfestival.com/

I am so much a proud father.

 

[DeadManWalking]

Midday Mooners, for the eclipse in Cornwall, '99.

Madness from start to finish, especially the bit with the riot police, and getting on the front page of the Daily Mail the next day was a nice touch.

Best party ever

http://www.hardcorecarvers.co.uk/festival/middaymooner99.html

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/cubist/340/

Great fun and a police escort out the county!

 

[MooChild]

Midday Mooners, for the eclipse in Cornwall, '99.

Madness from start to finish, especially the bit with the riot police, and getting on the front page of the Daily Mail the next day was a nice touch.

Best party ever

http://www.hardcorecarvers.co.uk/festival/middaymooner99.html

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/cubist/340/

Memories So very spannered, only managed to get some sleep on the morning of the eclipse and very nearly missed the sodding thing (thanks to whoever though they better wake me up for it!)

Twas fun, but i can't really remember very much, apart from the 24 hour techno

 

[DJWrongspeed]

My first Big Green Gathering in 2000 was pretty special, the last at the Warminster site, just another universe, we played d'n'b in a geodesic dome and the world seemed a better place.

My favourite Exodus was Free Spirit '99 I remember Larry Love doing his acid tekno country set, the Squall tent was superb, the best music ever

 

[blossie33]

The Frome Festival in 97 was a bit mad, did anyone else here go? It was the weekend of Diana's funeral.

There was a site for the organised festival, a couple of music stages, food and drink stalls etc. and the camping field was the other side of the main road linked by a footbridge.

The camping field became a sort of free festival in it's own right when various sound systems arrived and most people, along with a load of others who had just turned up, were partying there as the main festival music finished at 9pm, plus they didn't have to pay of course!

The actual festival went bust during the weekend so the shuttle vehicles which were supposed to take people back to the station on the last day never materialised. I started to walk back the 4 miles with my tent and bag along the bypass road when a guy driving an old double decker bus stopped and gave me a lift for which I was very grateful.

Back at the station, I remember, there was this guy who had lost his friends and one of his shoes (he said he had woken up in a haystack ) and also had no ticket but he did get on the train and pretended to be asleep and the ticket collector very kindly turned a blind eye and just walked passed.

 

[DeadManWalking]

The Frome Festival in 97 was a bit mad, did anyone else here go? It was the weekend of Diana's funeral.

I was there, seem to remember they were showing the funeral on big screens on the main site whilst most people were on the campsite swopping Di jokes.

 

[mr steev]

I was there, seem to remember they were showing the funeral on big screens on the main site whilst most people were on the campsite swopping Di jokes.

I was there too... don't remember anything about Di's funeral though. Quite the opposite infact. I do remember a note someone had put on the fence by the bridge about Mother Theresa's death though, adding a bit of perspective.

I went the year before too. I remember being on acid (as many people were) and there were loads of lights, helicopters and the like. At first we thought it was gonna get busted, then rumour had it that it was Eat Static doing some mock alien landing... unfortunately a couple of days later we found out that there had been a tragic car accident, killing 4 young festival goers (no one mentioned it before so as not to bring a downer on the fezzie... my mates had to walk past the carnage on the tail end of their trip! Coppers telling them to keep looking at the floor and keep walking

 

[Ground Elder]

Some friends carried on partying in Frome during Di's send off. The hippy establishment got so upset they became the only people banned by name from the Big Green Gathering

 

[Voley]

Some friends carried on partying in Frome during Di's send off. The hippy establishment got so upset they became the only people banned by name from the Big Green Gathering

Now that is a claim to fame!

 

[Ground Elder]

When they did turn up at the BGG and were refused entry they squatted a site nearby. The BGG and the police then panicked, realising they had a potential off-site party to deal with

 

[William of Walworth]

Some friends carried on partying in Frome during Di's send off. The hippy establishment got so upset they became the only people banned by name from the Big Green Gathering

Was there not plenty of that sorta thing anyway, what with the Travellers Field being nearly as big as the official festival?



My knowledge of Frome is very second hand mind ...

 

[Flounder]

Was there not plenty of that sorta thing anyway, what with the Travellers Field being nearly as big as the official festival?



My knowledge of Frome is very second hand mind ...

There's a lot of rumours around that one - we'd been to them all prior to this, but a mate was getting married in Brizzle so went to that instead. without wanting to go into detail,perhaps looking at why a site was allowed to set up in the car park in the first place will put you along the right track

Treworgy was my first festival - remember Gaye Bykers, Chaos UK, being scared, Hawkwind, Demented are Go/Frantic Flintstones and sleeping in the welfare/medical tent in a pepsi soaked sleeping bag, eating lentil mush from the Hari tent then regretting it due to the bog situation. I wrote a bit about it for some bloke who has a website on it, but can't remember where it is.

All the Deptford ones were great - Mary and The Dewdrop Inn still hold fond memories for us