Live Review

Secret Garden Party 2008 – Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

• 29th Jul 2008

Once again they gathered in the magical gardens, fancy dressed, tattooed, eccentrics; many of them from another planet, others escaping modern life for another four days of sights and spectacles. If you were down in the woods for these glorious sun baked days you were sure of many a surprise.

The Secret Garden Party was full to burst in the year of ‘Come The Revolutions’. 6,500 participants, almost all an artist in their way, performed and played away. Maybe this is how Glastonbury used to be? On to a sparkling Garden we ventured and fell in to many wonderous pursuits of the truly trivial. Armed with cups of mead, pumped by wenches at the old oak tree, we jigged through karaoke sing alongs, past groups of zebra girls sheltering in the shade before retiring to the top of the treehouse.

The heat was immense and so it was that weekend spirits and cider sales soared among the half naked as the bands began to play. Music, that’s what we came for; it’s hard to focus here. Absentee played the shark dressed ‘Great Stage’ on Friday afternoon as we lay back on the grass among a sparse crowd. While thousands played in the weirdness we watched a downright dirty throated front man with bouncy backing vocals and lead guitar recalling a happier Mark Lanegan or Kurt Wagner.

And then the Suicide Sports Club took away control. Down they fly – away to the cool lake through hay bales and unlucky groups – building momentum with bikes, trikes and trollies. One poor soul was struck down in the prime of his party by a man fuelled tractor tire and carted away by Last Aid with their blood bags full of alcohol and manish nurses. Caked and then baked they fought in the WWF Mud Wrestling Pit, then with paint and straw leaving figures looking as strange as the Head Gardener himself. Introducing his discoveries and wandering his land in a pink mankini and outrageous ever growing bulge packing out his country gentleman’s attire.

Never has there been a headliner at the SGP more in tune with it’s ethos. Grace Jones arrived 45 minutes late as the lake’s Pirate Ship, which had hosted a DJ set from Zero 7 burned to its rafters. Her Raking legs strode back and forth ahead of the largest ever SGP crowd, not an eye left her scarily confident girating body. The costume changes came as frequently as the songs and as thousand dollar hats came and went from that famous shaved head of hers we were treated to ‘Jamaican Guy’, ‘Pull Up To The Bumper’ and ‘Slave To The Rhythm’ before the plug was pulled. She remained on stage posturing, dancing and demanding her mike be turned back to full on. Those who finally convinced her that just wasn’t going to happen were brave men. Berated by old big mouth and a thousand boos the organisers saved the festival from trouble by sticking to curfew. Grace Jones left to an almighty cheer; a rare creature, in this commercial day, who stays and demands to play on when the fee is payed and the deed done.

Saturday night sets either side of her madness provided the sweatiest parties of the weekend. The Whip with euphoria, Ratatat with strange synths and unique almost stadium rock swirling guitar and the Infadels who had every last person pogoing in to the late night of the morning. Like Grace they brought up fancy dancers from the audience and encouraged a huge stage invasion. Our feet as dead and hard as a Glasvegas heart. With heads bulging from an NME cover, like Kate Nash last Party, they pulled out with delusions of having risen above Grace Jones.

With our Dave having lost out at the Dave Off to find the festival’s best Dave I lay in silent solitude and let the classical sounds of Iceland’s latest discovery Olafur Arnalds float in to a banging head. Unappreciated by the masses and not yet near Sigor Ros yet worthy of greater attention than irritating sets from Morcheeba, Metronomy and the Hoosiers. Peggy Sue and the Pirates followed on over at The Valley Of The Antics Stage – one of nine – with their two beautiful harmonies sounding much like an Amy Winehouse and Coco Rosie collaboration. Another female to the highest degree Lykke Li – pictured by Glasswerk – proved she deserves all the hype with huge stage presence, haunting vocals and driving electronic beats; something that eluded Saint Etienne. As the rain finally began to fall Sarah Craknell (sex symbol) provided a vaguely depressing performance to her small but devoted gathering. As stop start as the showers and with faultering sound we trudged and then ran as the dark clouds blew in over the closing main stage.

What went before all seemed a beautifully twisted dream as we wound down the deserted country lanes to return to this corner of Britain – forever peculiar – next time, always.