The missing Boomtown review

Given that I very rarely visit my blog, or read my own work for that matter it came as a suprise to me earlier to find that my review of last years Boomtown Fair is missing!
I thought that the quantity of complaints regarding my reviews was low so upon checking out the uploaded stuff I was shocked to find a huge blank hole where my once shameful review once lived. So here be a re-post:

The upcoming days to this year’s Boomtown fair were stressful to say the least. It co-incited with my partners birthday and given that I had just spent all of my money buying and converting a ropey DAF 400 mini-bus into a barely passable camper van I knew that I had to make this a weekend to remember for her.
It was her first festival and to be honest it was only my proper second one. I had visited Ashton Court every year from the time I was tiny until the time I was big, I had also popped into Nozstock last year to perform with Sicknote. But as I was only there for a day I never really counted it.
Boomtown Fair 2009 had set a high standard of what to expect from a festival and this year I was looking forward to the same level of entertainment and fun.
Needless to say, the bar was raised again!

After hours of tedious motorway driving followed by forty minutes of being lost in Buckinghamshire country side, we finally found Stow House. The venue of this year’s event. What a beautiful scene it was too, an infinite blanket of greenery within sandstone walls, enormous well-aged trees shrouded a stunning mansion and a school for posh kids who wouldn’t understand what a festival was.
We drove over a bridge that crossed a beautiful lake that accommodated ducks and reeds and... Wait a minute, I’m not Bill Oddie. This is a festival review, not a nature documentary.
ANYWAY! We picked up some hitchhikers who had a didgeridoo so that makes up for it all.

Despite being half a mile from the festival we could already feel the pumping bass resonate through the floor, attracting sand worms and stressing out freeman (guess the reference).
We got there, did all the nonsense at the security stuff (they had PDAs and stuff it was very professional). Pitched up in the campy bit...put our boots on, drunk some of the beer we had smuggled in (sorry guys, but that rule was NEVER going to get enforced successfully now was it?) and headed towards the PUMPING NOISE!

This was where I was super-duper amazed.
2009s Boomtown had been fantastic and the scenery and setup was incredible, but this year they had pulled out all of the stops. I found myself stood within the centre of a post-apocalyptic town... battered shop fronts housed secret night clubs... shattered shopping trolleys accommodated speakers... it was incredible.
This mock-up town really played on the sense of deviation created by Boomtown. It felt like we weren’t meant to be there... like our parents had gone away to Blackpool and we’d invited all our mates around despite being told ‘NO PARTIES’.
The lack of commercialisation was to thank for this. Ashton Court had become an outdoor Orange Phone shop in its later days and even small events such as Rock in The Dell in Chepstow began relying on sponsorship which it had later lost.
When speaking with Sion Bailey, bassist and singer of Cowboy and The Corpse who played the Devil Kicks Dance Hall he was surprised to see people of all different musical cultures getting along so well. Spiky haired leather clad punks were chilling out on hemp blankets with hippy women called ‘Dalek’ and ‘Moonbeam’. It was like watching the I.F.C throw a party for Arsenal fans.
I don’t remember the Devil Kicks Dance Hall being at last year’s festival and if that is the case it turned out to be a nice addition. As much as I love reggae, ska and dub I also love my Rockabilly, Pyschobilly and punk. So it made for some satisfactory diversification.
As the night hit it was time to admire the Boomtown lights, often in the form of huge mechanical robots or statues throwing out fire into the night’s sky. I was not disappointed. I was also kept very warm. Open fires made for brilliant social networking areas and conversation pits.
Not one to sound quintessentially British but the weather wasn’t great at times. However, this did not stop people from wearing shorts and sandals and standing in front of the main stage. I admire their tenacity... I admired it from the Bar tent, where I lived during every period of rainfall.
As the weekend went on though, the weather cleared and all was well again.

One thing I was very happy to note this year was the much improved feel of family orientation. To the point in fact where there was an entire field dedicated to accommodating families, which included a camping area and a number of tents and stalls to entertain children of all ages. I noted that a number of them were educational and informed children on topics such as renewable energy.
Around the edge of the main ‘town centre’ (where the main stage lived) there were also a number of tents and stall which had different activities taking place over the weekend. I spoke to one little boy (who looked like a younger version of me) as he was learning how to carve rocks. He had been having the time of his life and to thank his parents he was carving a skull and cross-bones, of which I have a photograph because it looked cool.

One of my favourite stalls had to be the scientist dude with the giant satellite dish (which acted as a solar powered toasty maker) and a homemade Tesla-coil. Which I got to watch in full force on the last night. I had what seemed to be an endless conversation with the eccentric-bearded chap and was pleased to see how he was able to make physics seem so bloody interesting. I wish I had had him as a teacher in school!
Flipping heck, this review is already 969 words long and I still have so much to talk about!
Perhaps I’d best summarise it in a paragraph or something...
As far as I am concerned I think the team at Boomtown are going to find it hard to excel this year’s festival because it was fantastic. The only issue I had was that there was a LOT of reggae, ska and dub...but it IS a reggae, ska and dub festival so WHATDOYA EXPECT?!
The improvement of family based activities and accommodation was a fantastic choice, although I’m sure if space had allowed for it in 2009 it would have been equally as good.
In the second night I managed to speak with two police officers who were on patrol throughout the fair who informed me that they had had no trouble whatsoever and they were happy to see everyone having a good time. Thank you for that constabulary for having an open mind and not quashing what turned out to be a fabulous weekend.
On the Monday I did stay longer than I should have as I found myself getting upset at the stalls and stages being taken down... I didn’t want myself to believe that it was all a big mock-up but was in fact a post-apocalyptic town in the middle of nowhere. However if you want to re-live something close, come to Newport. (Although the people in Newport are nowhere as laid-back and cool as those at Boomtown)
I hope to see you all and more at Boomtown 2011 where you’ll see that everything I say is right and you’ll want to come back again and again.
Let’s keep this type of event alive! Don’t allow it to get into the hands of the likes of Starbucks or any of those filthy, disgusting conglomerates who would turn it into a giant billboard, sporting the likes of My Chemical Romance or some other pop band! We want Zen Hussies not bloody Spice Girls.

Thank you Boomtown crew for yet another Fab’lus time.