Dan’s idea … Y-Not indeed … early train over to Manni and on to Stockport for a pickup over to Buxton and then Derbyshire … festival ok to find, up a long track with a very muddy field on the right with some marooned cars. Some festival stewards suggested a council car park further on, and there was one space left just for us. Down the road and into the fest … no queues at all … magic! Then to the gate … the mud started … pretty much the whole area covered in a swamp. Wearing best trainers suddenly seemed pretty stuppid – most people were in wellies … doh, all those years at Leeds hadn’t prepared me for this. Staggered across to the beach bar cocktail tent and a sex on the beach … suddenly the mud didn’t seem so bad – I resigned myself to chucking my trainers in the bin – and off we went. A slippery slide over to the beer tent … ‘what no carling?’ ‘what no strongbow?’ what kind of festival was this … barrel after barrel of real ales … didn’t they know people came to festivals to drink the crappiest beer for the most overinflated prices from paper cups? Still I didn’t trust this real ale business so what about the ciders? Dave had bought a pint and now was looking a little unhappy with it … ‘ok, I’ll have that, you get some real ale if you must’. Ooof 7% with a very bitter aftertaste … took some drinking ‘haven’t you finished that pint yet?’ – ‘no I got a bit to go yet’.

Still we should try and see some of the bands I suppose…The Souvenirs…King Pleasure and the Biscuit Boys…HUW…Joe Summers..Minus IQ, they went by, Souvenirs & Minus IQ not too bad, King Pleasure best watched from a very long distance on coffee tables in the mud with bacon sandwich…HUW – cider kicking in viciously now – don’t remember ever being that disappointed about missing a dance music set, getting there on the last track, something a little strange about that cider … Joe Summers – a song about how the new rave movement had left him totally non-plussed … the bands were playing alternatively in the tent and the main stage so you could catch a bit of everyone – or just loiter in the beer tent or at the beach bar sipping vivid cocktails from plastic glasses …

The Dandilions hadn’t sounded too good on the spoiler CD I’d put together, but they were working SO hard. The crowd weren’t taking part too much, but the band got everyone on their feet, large portions of the crowd to dance … and finally a huge conga around the tent, brilliant, all on a Sunday afternoon towards the end of the festival. Detroit Social Club had sounded a little different from the indie fare – but it was the Sunshine Underground who really hit the festival spot! Ok they were a bit Manc or a bit Coral … but by then they sounded like the greatest band on earth!!! Sam Beeton was terrible in contrast and I went outside and sat in the muddy field watching the sunset, one field of party goers in a rural English landscape – black and white cows dotted around the rolling hills surrounding the field.

The Young Knives finished it off…laced with irony and self mockery – they were indie but quite different from the norm, 3 suited men playing to a field of partied out festival goers but with still just enough left in the tank … staggering back through the mud in the dark I was glad not to go down … back to the council car park and a quick escape back to Chorlton with only a few scratches.