First published by Spoonfed.co.uk
The facts, even when beaded on a chain, still do not have real order. The brass tacks are scattered. Things are separate and haphazard and random even as they occur. This is what it must feel like to live in a fantasy world. Or to be insane. It’s 5am. Do you know where you are? The garden. Let me tell you again about the garden, about the place where irreverence reigns. The dreamland.
A girl in a red wig and silver catsuit is grinding away at your leg. Heavy rain falls from the sky, flames shoot from spikes. The crowd around you are exploding, faces contorted in what you assume is pleasure but could very easily be pain. The DJ booth towers above you, lights blinding you to who is actually in it, causing all this damn chaos. Sky-high hay bales block you in to the arena – which could be some kind of emblem of revolution. The rain isn’t too much of a problem. It’s cooling your face, calming your head. Things might become a little clearer if you could just get out from under this umbrella, extricate yourself from this damn afro-wig. High up on the podium, a couple of crafty DJs are laying it down. Hard and heavy. Loud, loud beats and flecks of related glory shower the crowd.
It’s only Friday and already you have danced on a massive dragonfly at the centre of a lake after bribing your way onto an opportunistic longboat with a couple of filthy au pairs. You’ve almost wept at the throaty growl of the incredibly young singers of hotly tipped Kill It Kid making their main stage debut. You’ve barged around on a pagoda while the Plump DJs make everyone on and off dry land lose it, you’ve shaken it down to the ground with a thousand Thursday nutters courtesy of Beat3. And now, it seems, you have re-entered the arena of rave and insanity: the Collisillyum. Mighty, massive and kicking to the sounds of the Crafty Rascals.
The Secret Garden Party, ah yes, we’re back. The place has the epicness of Glasto without the miles, the creative ambition of Burning Man without the dust. With a lake to swim in when it all gets too much. Recline on the croquet lawn dah-ling, roll in glitter then throw paint at your mates. Shake it like it’s actually tropicana, drop it like it’s super hot and wave them in the air like you just don’t care. Bounce around in what could be a London club except for the fact that it’s actually inflatable with speakers in the floor and called Poundland… The lasers, the low end, the sick sick beats…
The party which is no longer a secret is bigger and better and brighter than ever before. Incredible music, jaw-dropping art, a real sense of originality – no one does it like SGP. When the organisers say more entertainment per head than any other festival, they ain’t messing around. It’s impossible to see everything, impossible not to feel like you have missed something. Or missed a great deal, depending on how much sleep you choose to get/inebriation you choose to pursue. It’s certainly impossible to distill all the wonder here, to rip open your chest and display your beating, nostalgic heart in a thousand tiny words…
As is traditional the centre-piece goes up in flames on Saturday night. It’s the crescendo of the party. BOOM a rocket goes off, spraying sparks. Then another. Then a thousand. People are tiptoeing to seize a glimpse. Luckily someone hoists you onto their shoulders, and as the epic music crashes and the island burns, the earth revolves. All you can feel is awe. As you are returned to the ground, the crowds are filtering off – most are going to see Leftfield and the beautiful notes of ‘Original’ begin. Everything combines and aligns; pivots to a perfect moment. The music, the lights. What good fortune led you to be here?
“Sonically we’re in control. We’re the diamond in your soul. Images come thick and fast. From the future, from the past.” BOOM. You’re back in the arena, being hammered again by the colossal sounds of resident Your Niece, quickly followed by West Coast legend Bassnectar: three solid, unrelenting hours of dancing at the top of your game, people illegally climbing the frame in the middle, a fireman shimmying up after a hottie not to rescue but to dry hump her. This feels like our equivalent of a gladiator tournament, such is the level of excitement. Anything could happen.
And damn it, it’s over. There is this bittersweet feeling in the pit of your stomach, a fading in the cut of your jib. The four days you have been dreaming about have whizz-banged past in a puzzle of non-sequiturs: all you have is a sketchy tan and a big gap where a notebook crammed with notes for this very article should be. Returning to normality after the leaps made by your heart over the four days in the garden feels alien. Seeing the people of London hurrying, worrying about their business, hits you from a great distance, entirely another planet.
There exists, as you know, a festival community – or rather a worldwide community of like-minded, lovely human beings. And festivals like SGP are helping to join the dots. Getting these people together in new and wonderful ways. So many friends of friends, new people, gorgeous new people are being linked, introduced, hooking up, tapping in. Realising their dreams, performing their art, being inspired by what they learn, by who they taste, by what moves them, by what makes them wiggle their bum. “Be excellent to each other,” reads the sign on the bridge. There is no other way, is there?
This is how we relax – your generation, our generation. The lucky, happy people of this global community. Rolling on a hillside in fancy dress at Bloody Mary o’clock, boating out on lakes to islands shaped like dragonflies vibrating with music where multi-coloured ragamuffins are bouncing and grinning. Fighting in mud-pits, holding dancing competitions in boxing rings, singing at the top of your voice. It’s a holiday. Silliness is your currency. Absurdity is your means of relaxation. The people who know have settled into the swing of how things roll here. You become more yourself when you arrive: hyper-real, dressed to kill, and year on year, new people are rugby tackling into this way of thinking, piling higher and higher, squashing each other inappropriately, giggling and groping each other as they join the ever-increasing fray. Two words for you, friend. Get. Involved.
Lowri Clarke
Photos by the incredible Bartek Szadura.
Lowri Clarke 