old person goes to Boomtown
I am old (52) and I fucking love boomtown, I love the sheer energy and excitement that pervades the whole festival for 4 days. this was my experience.
arriving on Thursday and lugging all my shit in a trolley from the car park to the entrance gate in the blazing heat up a hill felt like an endurance test to join the fucking marines. but I must have passed a couple of hundred people on the way up who were stopped in the shade of the fence so I suppose that was an advantage, because it meant that when we got to the gate it was pretty empty and we were through and into the campsite in about 20 mins. massive improvement on last year where we waited at the gate for about 2 hours.
of course that was only the first stage of this iron man challenge because we get to the campsite and err its full. how the fuck did all these people get here and set up already, its only 2pm on Thursday ffs. we had to walk all the way round the edge, to this little fenced off peninsular bit that mercifully had a patch big enough for my tent and only a medium amount of gravel. where on earth would all the people behind us in the queue find to put their tent up? I have no idea.
once the camp was sorted though we went for a look around. lions den is close to orchid, that's handy. old town is like a steampunk carnival. anara forest is cool and shady but smells a bit of piss. it gets dark and we go out into main thoroughfare and jesus fuck there are a lot of people here. its quite overwhelming. literally tens of thousands of people in every direction you look. everyone's buzzing with anticipation, lots of coordinating with people on phones, groups meeting up. there's plenty of side venues and bars banging out tunes but the main stages aren't open. it feels more like an enormous fun fair with 80 thousand punters. tribe of frog is banging though and everyone is getting into it right off the bat.
the campsite is rammed and that means you have to queue for everything. basic things in the morning like getting a coffee and having a shit, the simple pleasures in life, demand an excessive investment of time. they probably could have had more food vendors there in orchid, but I don't know, maybe I just went at peak times and it was quieter at other times.
i'm into house and techno mainly, but I pretty much like all forms of electronic music. why would you go to Boomtown if you are not in to drum and bass old man? bro I DO like drum and bass, just not all the fucking time. I listened to dnb and jungle back in the day, I love a bassline and MC as much as the next man, but I generally associate it more with a notting hill sound system, or sitting in the shade in the afternoon having a smoke. hence shy fx was superb and sub focus rocked. at 2:00am I like something a bit more psychedelic. that ain't a diss its a preference.
Friday night in the main town was immense. massive crowds at every stage. we gravitate towards hydro and catch Eats Everything, Ross From Friends and 9x9, all of them brilliant. then oguz comes on and drops a massive eurotrance chord and i'm like right, lets bounce. we spend the next 3 hours wandering around the main town just going in to random rooms and tents, no idea who's playing, just listening to the music. didn't bother with anything with a queue, we've done enough queuing today thank you. stand outs were acid leak and 360 which is an amazing venue, when you can see the crowd on the opposite side getting right into it. but the main thing is that every single venue, no matter what the size or the music playing, has got a massive crowd who are really into it and reacting like crazy to the drops. that's something special right there. we end the night at tribe of frog because its on the way home, the psytrance is sublime and they got the best decorations in the festival.
there were loads of water points conveniently placed, never had to queue, and tastes great, better than the tap water at my home in the south east which tastes like swimming pool water. at orchid you could drink the water at the washing sinks too, and it was ice cold. it meant that a small 500ml plastic water bottle was the only thing I had with me. travel light with your head in the stars.
8:00am on Saturday it starts getting hot in the tent but I'm not through with the shut-eye, a man needs his kip. so I put the sleeping mat outside the tent on the shady side and sleep through to 2:00pm. that's better, ready for a new day. back to hydro for some housey housey - rossi, floating points, four tet. what a talented young man four tet is. top of his game. then come brutalismus. oh my god. these guys are nuts. recognisably german, that berlin industrial sound that has been around in various guises over the years, but also fresh and punky and exciting. they absolutely rocked and the crowd loved it. after that it was a repeat of last night, wandering about, letting the vibe take you here and there and everywhere. finally back to tribe of frog which now seems to have become a traditional way to end the evening.
sunday we spent mainly at fantazia in the hidden woods. old school classics but with fresh new edits. sonique was amazing, she got some energy that girl and the tunes to back it up. kings of the rave were top - I expected 2bad mice to drop bombscare, but I was wrong. wicked set tho. pete cannon and ratty also kept the crowd moving. around 10:00pm we head back up the hill to catch faithless at the lions den. I feel like a salmon swimming the wrong way up a river, there's a vast tide of people coming down the hill, presumably heading to down to squash everyone at skrillex. I agree with everyone that they probably should have been the other way round, with Skrillex at Lions Den instead. maybe its in his contract that he doesn't do hills, I don't know.
what an amazing weekend, full of delights and surprises. NEVER let any moany old git tell you it was better back in the day, that kids today don't know what raving is. what they mean is they haven't been out since 2005 and they don't know what it is any more. they don't know about the scene. they don't know about the energy of 80 thousand people having a shared experience. they don't know about the kindness of strangers, the beauty of friends. they don't know about boomtown. THEY DONT KNOW.
right that's enough from me, I'm about to go off grid again, heading off to WOH. take care of yourselves people. I love you all.