Friday

The quick tour around the site, mainly looking for a pencil, worked up a thirst so it was off to the Badger Ale Bar (one of two) to try out the Tanglefoot, which was so lovely we soaked in the atmosphere of the main stage and stayed there all night. Arriving just too late for the Baghdaddies but catching highlights including Nucleus Roots, Babyhead, the hugely energetic and slightly crazed The Big before the main two acts of the night.

Pronghorn are the festival’s founders and so it’s a good thing they are so bleedin’ excellent as they play every year! Their cow-punk is just terrific as it stampedes us from the main stage. They belt out a host of tunes for us to kick up the dry dirt along to. With kids on washboards, banjos, great fiddle playing, a brass section and it’s a crazy psyched up ho down. All I can remember from the night now is that they wouldn’t play ‘Ace of Spades’ but they did do ‘Pay Me’. It were right marvellous it were.

Now, once upon a time festivals would go on ‘til the sun rose providing music and dance. Then for sometime they stopped all that malarkey and made festivals close at midnight. Not anymore with the new licensing laws! So while happy kids ran about, people drank, the glo sticks and flashy things materialised, as did a few coats cos at the edges the wind was a bit nippy, the moon appeared above us and Neville Staples came out to play.

The music on offer being so good everywhere not forgetting the comedy, there had to be a clash and in this case it was between Neville and Subgiant so half our party went off beyond the bar with its DJs, to the DD Stage to see them. Some never even got as far as the DD (Desmond Decker) Stage ensnared by the happy beats of techno from the bar. We stayed however and danced our socks off to all the classics from The Specials, Fun Boy Three and Neville himself and ended up grinning wider than a cows udder! Nipping off to catch a bit of Subgiant and to dance like loons.

However the fun didn’t stop there oh no, Celtic dance mentalists Tarantism had us chillin’ til late in the Wildcat Tent before we went back to the tent, resting there for a while with the lit up trees to gaze at until finding it a bit cold in the breeze, despite music and chai from Henry’s Beard we nipped off to bed while others carried on ‘avin’ it large til’ dawn!

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