Solfest 2008 write up - Sam's take (now with added pictures)

Fuck Reading and Leeds, Solfest was the festival to be over the August bank holiday. It's like a smaller, friendlier version of Glastonbury without the overcrowding or crime/drugs. It's been voted Britain's most family friendly festival of '07 and I have to say it's a lovely way to spend 3 days.

After a 5 hour drive up to North Cumbria, near Carlisle, and another 45 mins stuck in a queue to get onto the site we were finally ushered out of the line into the 'artists car park' and yes, we felt very smug and special bypassing the waiting masses in their cars. We are a fucking rock band after all! Unfortunately it was pretty late in the day by then and the artists' camp site was full... as were all the others so we still ended up in a makeshift site farthest from the main site. Not so smug now are we?

Friday night we set up camp, myself, Joe and his lady friend Eve, Kate and her son and Simon our God like driver for the weekend (Dan came down with his lady friend on the Sunday due to having a wedding to go to). After the setting up we wandered up to the main site and caught Alabama 3 who were pretty good fun, watched a bit of Bad Manners on the Bar Stage where we were playing on Sunday and then left when Roisin Murphy of Moloko fame took to the main stage as by this time we were all pretty knackered.

Thank God we had some neighbours in the camper van next to us willing to keep the festival spirit alive  by playing utter crap on their car stereo at full volume until 2am, we were worried for a second there we'd have to go to sleep or something. Aging hippy bastards.

Luckily we didn't have to wait long in the morning for the party to recommence again. 7:30am and we awoke to the sounds of  Moonlight Shadow by Mike Oldfield.

The sounds of Joe shouting "Can you turn that fucking sonic diarrhoea off!? C***S!" carried across the campsite rather satisfactorily I thought. Slight echo. The sonic diarrhoea continued throughout the weekend with Kate's son Torrin suggesting we spray paint "GARY GLITTER - ON TOUR 2008" down the side of their van. I loved him for that.

 

Saturday we spend the whole day pretty much getting sunburned, shopping in all the little festival stalls and watching as many of the bands we we could.

Around midday I got a call from the Bar Stage supervisor asking if we'd like to swap our set on Sunday for a Main stage set on Saturday as a band from Austria couldn't get there until Sunday. We were tempted but obviously Dan wasn't at the festival yet so it would have had to have been an acoustic set, at an earlier time than we'd have had on the Sunday so we said thank-you but declined the invitation. We'd have lost the chance to play a full band set and that's what we were there to do, plus it would have been a shame for Dan to miss out on playing altogether. Of course, we sacked him when he arrived the next day yet again. He takes his sackings like a man, I'll give him that. Was pretty cool that they thought of us to fill the gap on the main stage though, I thought it boded well for chances of being invited back next year maybe? So long as we played well on Sunday.

Saturday was fancy dress day at the festival, a tradition they always have on the Saturday and I thought it was a great idea. There were some truly inspired costumes wandering about the place. Joe made friends with Jack Sparrow and a group of girls all dressed as Wally (as in where's Wally). I saw an 8 foot tall man on stilts dressed as the BFG and even some guy who'd obviously thought to himself "Who can I go as that won't have been done before? Fuck it, I'll go as Noo Noo from the tellytubbies". And he did just that. My fancy dress extended to wearing a hat.

We caught a few songs of Chas and Dave but I felt they didn't live up to the hype as there's only so many cheeky, cockney piano songs you can listen to in a row really. We did have some rather lovely sautéed potatoes and garlic mushrooms down by the acoustic stage though. Num num. We checked out the dance tent as well and Joe vowed to jig the night away after the bands were finished, apparently he was "up for it" that night.

We watched the Pipettes on the main stage who were pretty fun in a 50's 'do wop' kinda way. the headliners that night were Supergrass who were really rather good, although you were sort of hoping they'd skip the newer stuff and play the earlier singles, which is bad but then again it was a festival... we expect the hits damn it! Richard III was my musical highlight I think, tune.

We waited around to meet Joe to go to the Dance tent but couldn't find him in the crowd so decided bed was the better option only to find him back at the camp site chilling out with Kate... up for it my arse.

We awoke to find ourselves trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not our own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. Wait, no that's not right, we woke up to Ozzy Osbourn at full blast again at 7:30am. Bloody hippies and their camper vans!

We drove Joe's car up to the site to be ready to unload the equipment later in the day and when we got to the site watched a bit of Tiny Tin Lady playing a chilled out acoustic set on the main stage. Their rendition of every 90's dance hit rolled into one song divided the JWP troop with me being quite impressed and Joe wishing he'd never heard it. We also discovered we were entitled to a free meal. Result. It wasn't very good. Damn.

Dan arrived with his lady and her dad. We rejoiced. Then fired him.

I'd booked us in to play a short set on the festival site radio station the previous day so we showed up there and played a couple of acoustic songs for them. We dedicated Ode to the donor card to the hippy couple back at the camp site.

After a bit of dosing by the acoustic stage it was time to get ready to rock, we re-hired Dan and set up all our crap in the Bar Stage. Unfortunately our soundcheck was at exactly the same time as Misty's Big Adventure were playing the main stage, who were one of the bands I was really trying to check out. We even had to start our set before they had finished theirs as the main stage was running 5 mins late. However, we played a good set, kept to the upbeat tracks and hopefully made an impact on the slowly growing crowd.

I attempted to throw a banana into the crowd on the line "'ave a banana" in one of our new songs, in an effort to look cool but ended up throwing it into one of the drapes hanging from the ceiling where it possibly still is to this day. But the main news is that I had my first ever pair of knickers thrown at me! That's right, I am now officially a sex God, although as the compare stated "If you get a pair of knickers thrown at you on the first day of a festival you're in luck, if it's on the third day of a festival you're in trouble".  After baying from the crown I donned said pair of knickers and continued to look a twat for the remainder of the gig. All good clean (?) fun though.

Some great feedback from people after the set was over, lots of hello's, thank you's and 'cheers for watching's. Sold out of albums and made enough money to treat ourselves to some of the profits rather than sticking it back into the JWP money machine, which was really nice as it very rarely happens.

A quick pack up of the tent later and I was off back home, hitching a lift back with Dan as I had work the next day (bank holiday, double pay, not to be missed). We waved goodbye to Solfest and the rest of the band. "Bye bye Solfest and rest of the band" I said to myself as we pulled out of the site. "I hope I never see you again you bunch of arseholes". Only kidding, I'm such a card.

A quick stop off at a hideously over-priced motorway services where I managed to evade paying for my chicken and bacon panini. Well I told the guy it was a ham and cheese and got 50p knocked off it. That's now utterly rock and roll I am. Well he wasn't paying attention and I was annoyed.

Home at 2am and back to the dull cycle of getting up early for work. Sigh. Still, great weekend.

You'll have to ask Kate and Joe what happened for the rest of the festival. I'm hoping hippy couple didn't let them down and amazed them with yet more bilge at 7am, I'm also hoping Joe did something unspeakable to their van as punishment, but at this time that's all speculation.

Sam
XXX