Secret Garden Party

What started as a Secret Garden Party five years ago in the beautiful gardens of Lord Fellowes is no longer that much of a secret with 6000 people pouring into the festival as early as a week before.

The festival officially started on the Thursday but all the madness of summertime frolics really start to take off and take shape Friday morning.

Knights of the long table

What is different about the Secret Garden Party to many other festivals in the UK is that it is totally independent for one, but the big difference is the festival's budget is split evenly between music, art, installations, action camps and so on and so forth. You really are spoilt for choice at this party. Often missing some great things while deciding what to do.

Four main stages and several other stages host the music, then there is also hoola hooping, a fire camp hosting acrobatic fire displays and fire poi, a purpose built mud wrestling pit, a dance off stage, midnight Hamlet, every sort of action camp to help you be transformed into your favourite superhero or a zebra at zebra world, world record attempts such as the most amount of people spooning each other, conspiracy and science camps, the bad advice bears, suicide sports, sock wrestling, a raft building camp to get to another stage housed on a pirate ship on the lake.

And that's only tipping the iceberg of what is available to do at the Secret Garden Party. Literally, if it exists and it's fun, then it is somewhere on site. The Secret Garden Party is so much more than just another music festival.

Music wise the most recognizable band of the day Friday was Alphabeat, the sickeningly catchy pop group from Denmark. They draw a pretty average sized crowd but all their songs go down great to eclectically dressed gardeners, particular the singles 10,000 nights and Fascination.

The other big hit of the day were Metronomy, a UK electronic act who have toured with Justice, all wearing matching outfits with the circular trademark flashing light T-shirts, Metronomy kept everyone in the tent dancing the whole way through their short set to their fairly unique gypsy techno mix.

Bike bears Photo by Em and Carys Morgan

The other big hit of the day were supposed to be Cage The Elephant, but unfortunately they had to pull out due to the singer breaking his leg, and unlike a lot of festivals that finish at 11, this festival never stops with DJ's playing all night, in fact never stopping, in one tent, there was even a DJ playing, but to keep the music alive, there were four bikes lined up, the sound system entirely run off pedal power so as most people danced their way into the night, they owed everything to a fine set of saucy young female bears on some bikes.

Brazilian band Bonde do Rolê enjoyed a hefty crowd at the Great Stage, it's a strange kind of funk for the most part with a DJ and four MC's rapping and singing over everything from samba to Rock You Like A Hurricane by The Scorpions and even a Brazilian style bond theme, they go down like a small house on fire.

The surprise and well kept secret act of the day was the performance by last year's surprise hit The Hoosiers, the place really gets packed for this due to so many top 40 singles over the last 12 months. They play well and put on a really good show with dancers and even a small brass section, they go down like a large house on fire.

A big highlight of the night is Beadyman (UK beatbox champion) in the Valley of the Antics Tent, it's simply ridiculous how good this man really is, and if you were lucky enough to get inside the tent you were lucky as it was at least 10 people back even outside the tent.

The real highlight of the day (musically) was a band from New York called Ratatat on the Where the Wild Things Are Stage, an instrumental indie-electro band.

They play a few tracks from the new album LP3 but stick to mostly the classics, from their second album, conveniently called Classics such as Lex and Wildcat. Most of the crowd leaves at the end in an almost daze like state from the insanely mesmerizing tightness of the entire set and the incredible sound that is broadcast by the tone of the guitar.

Great Stage

The real talk of the day was Grace Jones on the great stage, but turning up over an hour late to the stage she had her work cut out for her. She didn't really make anything better with the constant costume changes after EVERY single song, the complete lack of interaction with the crowd and her ridiculous diva like status as she refuses to leave the stage after the music is cut. A poor show, everyone leaves disappointed looking for some fun but not really that surprised by the whole situation.

Late on Saturday night, the pirate ship becomes the focus of attention with a massive fireworks display from the ship, and on the land hundreds of lanterns being lit and let free into the sky, oh and the ship was also set on fire and burnt to a dust by the morning for reason still unknown.

On Sunday everybody has the same thing on their mind, who to see? Zero 7 or Morcheeba, two very similar styles of music, yet strangely the organisers have put on both bands at the same time. Morcheeba on the great stage and Zero 7 on the Pagoda stage.

At the Pagoda stage, with the dance floor a purpose built jetty on the lake, it was a one-in-one out sort of situation, so at this point hundreds of people had the same idea which was find a boat, sail to the pagoda stage and watch it from a raft, unfortunately only a few people got to see Zero 7 from that perspective but they looked impressed.

The last real band of the evening were Late Of The Pier, the hotly tipped and very young electro outfit who's debut album is still unreleased but produced by Erol Alkan. There is obvious potential for the band but for anyone who hadn't heard of any of their music before they make it very difficult for newcomers to get into it, and it seems very directed at a younger audience than is actually at The Secret Garden Party.

The party starts to die down in small hours of Monday morning though, not everyone totally happy about it, with even huge groups of people making their own music with synchronized drumming, rapping and much much more.

This festival is so much more than music though, it's a very spiritual gathering of people, everyone leaving with a smile as big and as ridiculous as the Jokers smile on Monday morning. No one is left disappointed after this weekend and something tells me its going to be even less of a secret next year.