Secret Garden Party (Day One)

This particular party feels like another earth within The Earth, and it’s a weird one. Tent assembled, we begin by strolling through the site aimlessly and with an ambling gait, swathing through mud-plastered hippies, in awe at the fifty hula-hoopers skanking to Rihanna and the early-risers swimming in the pictorial lake.

As Bristol singer-songwriter Rozi Plain plays out her fragile, wafer-crisp folk on the eerie Where The Wild Things Are stage, tummies rumbling, we decide to sample the SGP cuisine in the form of a ‘caramelicious’ hot chocolate and take another wander. But everywhere we go, there’s something daunting and garish glaring at us. What is this ‘Colisillyum’? Why is there a gigantic fucking straw fox wearing a monocle on that hill?

Taking refuge in the Living Room venue, we bump into ex-school-friends Fair & Square who relate their meeting Lee Evans earlier this week. This is a cool and absorbing discussion, but a large man walking past in a wedding dress immediately distracts us.

Later on, however, these recent winners of ‘Best Newcomer’ at the Musical Comedy Awards are a genuine live winner. Quick-fire gags, inimitable chump faces and jocularly nonsensical interludes are the manifold order of the day. Curt parodies of Radiohead, Kelis and Britney, with added audience interaction, a dapper dress sense, ukulele noodling and cajon throbbing make Fair & Square an exceedingly difficult act to follow.

Next up – Strobe Circus, an irregular 8-piece reggae band are a fun find in the Rhumba Rum Bar, whilst The Moons, who number a Bob Dylan doppelganger, a lost Gallagher brother and George Harrison’s ostensible ghost, deliver pointless and unfashionable lad-rock at WTWTA. This isn’t so fun, so we head back to catch Planet Man and the Internationalz who bring the veritable dread to the Rum Bar, all Kingston riddims, bass thrums and meandering organ. There are a number of clichéd yelps of “I n I” but when the whole tent’s grooving to spotless bass improv and horn synths, who cares?

It is now raining. Typical bugger, and there’s a turnout of roughly a dozen for Dylan LeBlanc’s outdoor show at WTWTA, but he takes this on the chin. On a stage bedecked and surrounded with labyrinthine logs, himself resembling some sort of Neil Young and Evan Dando hybrid, LeBlanc plays a stunning set accompanied by a sole slide guitarist. Standout track “Diamonds and Pearls” aside, it’s his between-song chit-chat which is most endearing: “Oi, y’all, turn it up”, he calls out to the tinny D n B DJs in the distance.

Evening approaches as we bump into the lovely, if grumpy looking, SoKo on our way to see Alabama Shakes on the Great Stage. Wearing white, mud-splattered Dr Martens, she tells us she hates the mud and that she isn’t really “a festival person”. She plays on the same stage with an anomalous surprise guest the following day (see Day Two review).

In some sort of miraculous occurrence, the sun instantaneously comes out for Alabama Shakes’ early evening set, and the world’s most unseemly rock-stars amaze with their melodious, if rather comatose, rock n roll. Be it the androgynous chants, incendiary organ and infectious bass rolls of single ‘Hold On’, frontwoman Brittany’s howls and screeches on ‘I Found You’ or a new quick-paced number piloted by walking bass, their set is utterly triumphant from beginning to end. A drunk man snorting something whilst flailing his girlfriend in the air in front of us is a slightly disconcerting distraction, but nothing can detract from the Shakes’ powerful, sun-kissed grooves.

Cider-sozzled, we subsequently perch on top of the hill to watch Little Dragon’s catchy synth-pop of ululating 80s synths, LCD grooves and jovial bass thumps. It looks neat on paper, for sure, but they fall short live. Fifteen minutes is enough, so we leave to find an all-female MC group called the Lyrically Challenged Collective playing in the OneTaste area. Claiming to “represent unity”, they spit rhymes over Lauryn Hill samples and glitchy beats, pitching up somewhere in the THEESatisfaction vein. Hollering choruses like “We’re not having it any way, any how” is utterly enjoyable, and a little bit thought-provoking.

Compere MC Angel, a member of the aforementioned collective, next introduces 17-year-old Essex beat poet and rapper Sonny Green, who proffers irate political tirades of existential anger and fear, or what he describes as “conscious” music. Clad in a rainbow jacket, spoken word tune “Deeper Within” and the musical rest, on which he’s backed by drummer Kwake and DJ Shorty, are plainly wonderful. Quipping “Fuck Jay-Z” alongside “I remember when it was 10p for a freddo” showcases geniously topical teenage lyricism.

Irritated by Edward Sharpe’s entirely forgettable folk whimsy and entirely shitty dancing, we stick here to catch Kate Tempest’s beguiling unrelenting flow. Accompanied by childhood pal Kwake on the kit, she performs incessantly and spittingly, with the crowd in admiration. A short but sweet four-song set, at one point she takes off her socks, endures the mud, takes the microphone into the crowd and stands on a stool as if a preacherman. Tempest is surely a future poet laureate.