Chase and Status have Global Gathering in the palm of their hands on day two
Global Gathering 2011 review
Friday 5th August 2011
The clouds have cleared and my tent feels like a sauna, upon checking my phone I find out that it's little after 8am and have had just over four hours sleep, which isn't the ideal preparation for a whole day and night of dancing. Having freshened up and waited for my photographer to sleep for another two hours after me we got ourselves some breakfast we sat about the campsite getting to know our neighbours who are five lads from all over the country who know each other from university and after chatting to them we hear about more groans about alcohol.
Not only are you not allowed to bring your own booze into the site, the campsite shop is charging a whopping £45 per 24 crate of Gaymers or Tuborg, which whilst expensive is cheaper than the arena which then explains why the organisers won't let you bring campsite booze into the arena. There were a lot of complaints from other people about this and whilst you could see why they did this to maximize profits, it also seemed to be the case that other people decided to turn to illegal substances in order to enjoy themselves more as they appeared to be cheaper.
We decided to drink out in the car park before heading back when the arena opened at 12 noon to see what the site had to offer during the day.
First up on the main stage was Micky Slim who played in front of a very empty field, which was possibly more sparse than it would have been had it not been blisteringly hot with zero shade leaving Slim and his MC trying their best to catch the attention of people using the bar next to the stage.
We then gathered our bearings which was a little easier in daylight and with the arena less crowded. Screams of festival goers enjoying fairground rides and walking round in fancy costume brightened up the arena as we enjoyed a bit of lunch before heading into the tents for some entertainment.
We took the approach of wandering around till something caught our attention and that came in the form of UMEK who sent us on a whirlwind of house and techno before marching over to the Hospitality tent for NU:Tone with MC Wrec who provided a mixture of liquid and more heavier tracks featuring many off his new album 'Words and Pictures' and for the second half of the set they were joined by Nat Williams who came and gave the set some more flavour.
It became apparent that we were both suffering from open wallet surgery after one to many visits to the bar and so headed back to the campsite to enjoy a couple of slightly cheaper drinks and a break from our ears bleeding from standing at the front of the stage all afternoon.
We came back in for DJ Hype & IC3, who I had been keen to see since I'd not seen him play live since I went to Exit festival in Serbia three years ago. A full hour at full throttle with IC3 really getting the crowd worked up set up the stage for what was the weekend's star attraction in the shape of London's Chase & Status.
After the crowd had dispersed from DJ Hype it didn't take long for the hordes of fans to fill up the Metropolis tent and by the time they came on security staff were stood outside stopping people entering in which was nearly 20 deep beyond that. Quite why they hadn't been booked on the main stage was beyond me. They came on to a crescendo of noise and had the tent jumping within seconds as they opened with 'No Problem'.
Despite the tent being packed there was luckily just about enough room to dance about and it looked like they had the world in the palm of their hands as they bought Liam Bailey on stage to perform 'Blind Faith' which had the whole tent singing along in unison. My only disappointment was that they didn't play 'Take Me Away' but everyone left the tent happy and you could tell it was the one act the majority of younger attendees had come to see.
The energy given to us by Chase and Status led us to the creative James Zabiela whose mixture of House and Techno also included the impressive use of an iPad during his set. We finished off our weekend with Simon Patterson in the Godskitchen tent before the lights came up and everyone was ushered out of the arena at 4am.
As we left the arena there were some complaints (especially from day ticket holders) that it should have continued until 6am as it has done in the past and after returning to our campsite myself and one of the lads camped next to us went off round the site in search for more entertainment, but apart from a couple of fairground rides still going there was nothing more to be had.
We found refuge with four girls who were camped behind us who entertained us with their iPlayer and their chaotic behaviour and sat with them watching the sunrise, finally relaxing after a manic 36 hours. It felt like the weekend was just getting into the flow of it when it was time to pack up and go home, another night of music would have defiantly gone down well as it didn't quite feel like a full weekend at just the two nights.
I really enjoyed my time at Global Gathering and would happily return, but unfortunately it just seemed the organisers were there to cream as much money out of the punters as possible rather than doing it for the love of music. Everything was vastly over priced from the alcohol (£4 per can) to the lanyards (£8 each) which left a slight sour taste in our mouths as we made our way back down south on the Sunday lunchtime.
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