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| Global Gathering 2005 |
Date: Friday
29th to Saturday 30th July 2005
Address:
Long Marston Airfield, nr Stratford-Upon-Avon
Occurrence: Annual
Hours: Friday 5pm-2am, Saturday 2pm-6am
Ticket Price: £45 Friday, £60 Saturday
Genre: Various
Dress Code: N/A
Capacity: 35,000 |
It's that time of year again! The biggest UK dance music festival, Global Gathering, returns once more to Shakespeare country and this time it's in the form of a pioneering 2 day event.
Friday was the shorter of the 2 days, running from 5pm-2am, featuring Underworld, Oakenfold, Sasha, Deep Dish, Pete Tong and Roger Sanchez, which we unfortunately couldn't manage to attend. Saturday however, was our day, and basically anyone you can think of was playing at some point between 2pm and 6am! The line-up was simply amazing!
In short, it was awesome, and by far the biggest dance festival that I've ever been to. The site was just huge, with 8 tents, and lots of attractions and amusements, plus around 40,000 clubbers.
On arrival, we thought where do we go first? So much choice! Tiesto on the aptly named Radio 1 Beach stage was as good a place as any! It's always weird to hear a DJ play on an outdoor stage, as the sound doesn't quite hit you like it does in a club or even in the big tents. We were just in time to catch him play Southern Sun and Beautiful Things, with plenty of sand under foot and a large crowd. Tiesto looked tiny against the massive stage and screen, and he played for well over 2 hours. This was our first time clash, as we reluctantly left the trance master and headed off to see Eric Morillo in the Babooshka tent. Morillo was quality as you'd expect, and the crowd loved him and his house music.
Going to a festival with several friends means that there are various musical tastes to cater for, so I was dragged off to the Polysexual tent for some hard dance. The tent was mobbed all night and day and had a brilliant atmosphere. Just a tad too hard for me though.
What can I say about the Godskitchen tent? Amazing. It was so big. I wonder how many it actually held. You couldn't even see the DJ until you walked through the crowd to get closer to the front! The stage was huge, with dancers and fire going off in the background. I thought the single green laser at Amnesia in Ibiza was brilliant, but this tent had 6 of them! This was the main arena, with Godskitchen doing what it does best: trance. I could have stayed in their all night, with all the big guys like PVD, Armin, Ferry and Picotto all giving masterful demonstrations. We also saw Fergie, as part of the marathon 5 hour Essential Mix, and while I thought he was ok, playing a lot of techy stuff, many others were really disappointed. Eddie Halliwell then took over and it was relentless and extremely hard, until the end.
My favourite DJ at Global was undoubtedly Carl Cox, who had his own tent just for him and his friends! Well, plus a few thousand spectators! Cox is still brilliant, really enjoys his sets, and is very fond of the odd spin back or 2! He plays techno, but it has a funky feel to it, as well as the harder edged stuff. Many complain that techno is repetitive and boring, but not when Mr Cox is at the helm, and it reminded me of his Tuesday nights at Space in Ibiza.
Right next to Cox and Co. was the Air tent. This is where you go if you want to hear breaks and house, just like they play at Fabric on a Saturday night; very high quality and mature music. We managed to catch Adam Freeland and the Stanton Warriors, and sandwiched in between were the Plump DJs who were quite superb. I am reliably informed that their sets comprise solely of their own material, which is unique in itself. It also gave a great demonstration of their production skills, very classy.
Bedrock was another with their own tent, and we were fortunate enough to catch the legendary John Digweed for a bit, following on from Jonathan Lisle. Not quite as busy as the other tents but again very high quality.
The last major tent was the Accelerate Culture, or drum 'n' bass tent. I didn't quite manage to make it in. Sorry!
Ok, so for all the great things about Global there are unfortunately one or two little bones to pick. That is very expensive bones! Prices! Sort it out! What a joke, but nobody found it very funny! After paying £60 to get in, to then get rinsed for everything you buy is a disgrace; £3.50 for a bottle of coke, £2 for a bottle of water, £2.50 for a pathetic "portion" of chips and £35 for a 30 second bungee jump (that's if you're daft enough!). Furthermore, nobody knows the running order when they arrive unless they fork out for one of the official programmes that hang round your neck. Again, after spending £60 on a ticket, I think it's only fair that you are entitled to know who is playing at what time. So there. Rant over.
To summarise this event is near impossible, it's only when you look back at the line-up that you realise who you didn't see! You can't fault the music, the sound, the DJs, the line-up, the tents, the atmosphere or the crowd at all.
Leaving at 6 am, we were then faced with the mission home to Guildford, and it was a mission! To be told that there were no trains until 8:15 am, was not what I wanted to hear! Maybe a few extra special early morning trains for this unique once a year event wouldn't go a miss? Afterall, there were plenty of people waiting, and getting charged £2 for the shuttle bus to the station was a further irritation.
But it was all worth it. Even the rain pouring down at 2 am didn't dampen anybody's spirits or the loss of my highly valued £4 digital watch! Definitely do it all again next year.
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Venue: 9
Music: 10
Crowd: 10
Sound System: 9
Total: 38 / 40
Rating: Gold Award |
| Review written by:
Kevin Boyle |
kevin@uk-cl.co.uk |
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