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home » festivals » Standon Calling » Standon Calling 2010
Salsa tunes, wasps, and rock karaoke at Standon's final dayStandon Calling 2010 reviewFriday 13th August 2010 Sunday was a much brighter sunnier day and after I had washed the majority of Pink Panther face paint out of my hair and face, I ventured out and noticed a lot of people coming back from the swimming pool looking very refreshed.
I settled down in The Twisted Licks Stage tent at 1pm to catch Reading electro act, Mr. Fogg. Anyone playing at this time of day seemed to have a bit of a graveyard shift because the problem with the festival activities going on until 6am is that it meant there was not a lot of activity at this time of day, excluding the early risers and families with kids.
I'm going to take this moment to cheesily point out that the only main problem with the festival was people literally getting stung! For some reason the weekend was plagued by wasps in the arena and around the tents and as well as my friend getting stung at one point, it was amusing to walk through the crowd and hear the yelps every now and again or seeing people manically waving their arms running in circles! I visited The Gabberdashery next, which is a boutique of accessories and clothes, run by Gabby Young who was due to perform that day. I wanted to get my face painted, as I had seen some amazing and beautiful artwork on people's faces around the festival site.
The group were given huge accolade by the presenter who explained that the flame-haired beauty was doing a huge festival tour this summer and has been followed around by the likes of national papers. Admittedly when she started, I realised the photo pit was a lot more crowded than it had been so far at the festival. Gabby entered the stage with a flowing, country and western style dress with a tight corset top and a dome shaped bottom of layers. Her bright red hair was adorned with colourful jewellery and she had wispy lines around her eyes; visually she was enchanting. Hearing Gabby speak, she comes across as very cutesy and maybe even slightly child-like but the rich, traditional styled vocals that emanate out of her are definitely something amazing, even if she is not to your taste. The Other Animals was a great brass band that played out loud brassy sounds and aided her with eclectic backing vocals. Gabby's music is very hard to describe – some of her songs had an air to them as if they were being sung by the character Nancy in Oliver!, whereas others had tinges of opera and big band music, as well as having 50's and 40's inspired tunes. With the aid of her band, she brought a huge, 'fairy-tale' like performance to the stage and had a lot of the crowd, especially children, whimsically dancing along in the boiling sun.
I caught the Rockaoke next, which had been taking place at various points in the last few days in the Crooked House tent. It was basically karaoke with a live rock band accompanying the singer and it was such good fun! The whole audience in the rammed tent joined in with the rock and indie classics, such as Blur’s Parklife and it’s very hard to sound bad with a rock band supporting you; I actually heard a few people say it was their favourite thing of the weekend. The band accompanying the singers was clearly very talented. I managed to get my face painted at the Gabberdashery as the make-up artist had returned and it was amazingly cheap as well as being stunningly beautiful. The Heritage Arts Company were in charge of the whole murder mystery adventure that weekend and every now and again I was reminded that people had involved themselves in this interactive murder mystery quest. For example, at one point I noticed a queue of people with 'Bingham banknotes' queuing outside an old style phone box, which a policeman then popped out off and led them inside one by one to reveal clues!
I was off to grab some food before the evening's acts and to my slight disappointment I realised that most of the food stores had closed or run out of specific meals. The Mexican place was actually counting how many people were in the queue to ensure they could meet that demand and a friend had to wait 15 minutes even when they got to the front of the queue for pasta.
After retiring to the painting alcove and making a sufficient amount of mess on pieces of cardboard to add to the already growing collage of artwork, I grabbed a spot in front of the main stage for the headlining act Buena Vista Social Club, and wow what can I say? Before they came onstage a very tipsy Alex Trenchard came on to a roaring crowd and thanked everybody for making his festival what it is today, ten years on, and introduced the headline act. It was a really touching moment and I can safely say he has a huge fan base! The vibrant band came onstage and created the best salsa tunes that I have ever heard. Again, it may not be to everyone's taste but it was clear that we were hearing the highest quality in Latino music possible, as the mature band took to the stage and effortlessly played Latino sounds into the night sky. They were joined onstage by Omara Portuondo, 70 years old, and an original member of the Buena Vista Club in Havana. It was absolutely spectacular to see a woman of that age moving about so gracefully in her vibrant orange dress and creating the most beautiful sounds vocally. The band really got the crowd going as they completely owned their instruments and showed that the oldies do it best! They continuously spoke Spanish to the crowd apart from when the lead singer would look at Omara and say "sexxxxy!" which he did on quite a few occasions to the delight of the crowd! I listened to the end of the performance sitting at The Tree Bar and looking down at the lights from the main stage, and as I realised it was nearly the end of Standon Calling 2010, I felt slightly sad but also oddly proud at just how far the festival has come in a year, in terms of activities and originality, without losing its charm. Could it be the best place on Earth? Possibly. Will I be back next year? Without a doubt.  review by Fiona Madden photos by Fiona Madden
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