Secret Garden Party!

• 18th Jun 2007

This year’s Secret Garden Party weekend – 26 – 29 July – has been titled ‘Brave New Worlds’ and the organisers have been more than courageous with a line-up far less commercial than other British festivals but with a superb mix of music from ‘new rave’ to folk rock. While V festival and the like pack their main stage with the biggest earners in pop SGP has rather picked the biggest talents in world music. Highlights come on every stage, every day with the unlikely but stunning partnership of Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan a real standout. Echo and the Bunnymen, New Young Pony Club, the Sunshine Underground the Noisettes and Candie Payne are also big draws of the new Great Stage.

Elsewhere, on the Where The Wild Things Are stage you can enjoy the beautifully bittersweet harmonies of Au Revoir Simone and up and coming Liverpool group Peter and the Wolf. Also playing on the Sunday are the better known indie rockers I am Kloot and Electric Soft Parade. The Remix Arena is lead by Reverend and the Makers who have just entered the top ten and who Glasswerk promoted in their previous live showcases. The Garden Party is a completely different atmosphere to huge and impersonal monsters like Glastonbury. Here only 6,000 tickets are on sale, and that is more than the previous three years. While the music stops with fascist curfews at V bang on 11 the Secret Garden stays up all night with outdoor music running to 1 am and some indoor tents playing live music all night long.

In the central camp you can eat crumpets, have locally brewed ale and settle down in the comfy seats to enjoy films and the best maverick musicians about, with Herman Dune to make a perfectly awkward appearance. The music and laid back atmosphere promise a weekend of weirdness and the best of times. The oddness is just as prominent in the manifesto. People gain discounted entry by promising their services in strangeness. From hula hooping, to storytelling by the campfire, exhibitionists can gain cheap entry by providing their own entertainment. With swimming in the lake in the most beautiful farm land in Cambridgeshire it will be the feel good festival of the summer. Get down and get involved.

Visit www.secretgarndenparty.com/2007 for tickets, more details, line-up, and unusual goings on.