Festival No. 6 comes alive away from the stages with an amazing voyage of discovery all day long

Having lived in Wales all my life there are not to many places, especially tourist attractions I have not yet visited. But, after hearing that a new festival had been started on the beautiful coast of north west Wales, I was overjoyed to hear that it was being held in the world famous Port Meirion village, home to the cult 60's series The Prisoner.



Had there not been a mix of all these drawing factors teamed with a line-up including Primal Scream, Gruff Rhys, and New Order, I may have given up on going when I suffered a severe trapped nerve in my back, on the Thursday before the festival. But, with it being my last festival of the season, I decided to don the crutches and get on with it, the weather forecast looked good, so I was either going to be in pain at home bored, or at a festival.

We arrived at the well run park and ride station at Porthmadoc's football club, a mere two miles from the festival site, and were greeted by some of the most helpful friendly and knowledgeable staff. With a very limited amount of parking on site, this was the only option for all punters bar those with disabled parking badges.

I felt the bus ride added to the mystery of the weekend, being shuttled into the site, and as soon as you entered the gates to the estate, you had a surreal feeling, which was to only expand the further you wandered into the festival.

The festival site itself felt like it was split into two completely different worlds, the top end of the site, called the Castle grounds consisted of the large tented main stage, which ran from 4pm to 3am, along with all the usual various festival food stands and clothes stalls, though they did all feel a little more carefully selected and quite 'High End'. There were three other smaller stages in the main arena, then a two minute walk was the Castle and The Castle gardens stage. The Castle was one of the many types of accommodation on offer over the weekend, if you did not fancy camping there was options of boutique camping, staying in the beach front hotel, renting one of the village cottages or residing in the castle, all at a premium price.

I caught my first band of the day on the main stage, a local band called Race Horses, very much in the psychedelic super fury animals mould, I watched 4 tracks when the excitement of discovering the rest of the site got the better of me! I left the run of the mill Castle Gardens area through the huge gates "Welcome To Number 6" and this is where this festival truly came alive!

Any festival can deliver the usual bands in tents in a field, but once I had left this area No. 6 came alive, and on entering 'The Village' everything started to get all a bit strange! There were wandering performers around every corner, and some of the most random performances you will see it was one amazing voyage of discovery all day long!

Built in the 1930's Port Meirion is some sort of a bone yard for rescued buildings from all over the world, with a Greek looking Parthenon and Italian style piazza it has a largely Mediterranean style which was perfect for the programme hand picked for the inaugural No. 6, with many question and answer sessions, and conducted interviews taking place in the sunshine, drawing crowds of thousands all content to sit in the amazing surroundings listening to stories and anecdotes supplied by such luminaries as Andy Weatherall, Guy Garvey, and Tim Burgess. Bringing many a joyful smile from many of the crowd with their reminiscing of the halcyon days of the Hacienda years, after listening to Andy Weatherall's tales of touring with Primal Scream and recording it all in the name of journalism.

I decided to make my way down to the beach, with the tide out there were quite a few hundred people taking advantage of being able to rave with the sand between their toes, with the hotel stationed on the estuary providing it's gardens and patio as the base for the Estuary stage, which was pumping out minimal and funky house all day long!



With the sun out I could think of no finer place to be, I spent half an hour sat relaxing on the beach with a freshly squeezed orange juice trying to get my head around the site. Around every corner you turned there was something to confuse your mind a little more, disorientating in a way that I have only felt before in the late night areas of Glastonbury Festival. One area I would like to have explored more was the woodlands stage, which other punters later described to me as a wild rave in the wood, with many different bars offering their own unique styles and sound systems. However nursing a trapped nerve on crutches I decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at the Main Piazza stage, nestled in a deckchair.

I enjoyed the day so much I wasn't interested in relocating, with a impromptu stand up routine from Phill Jupitus leaving all onlookers in tears of laughter, and The Prisoner procession taking place in the piazza this will go down as one of the finest days spent at a festival, The Prisoner procession was performed by the prisoner theatrical fan club, re-enacting an episode of the series, with a battle for power through a vote in the prison, I wish I had watched the series before, as it may of meant that I would not have been quite so confused by many of the weekend's random activities.

Following that was a performance by the band Dark Horses, playing on the open air Piazza Stage, fronted by beautiful Swedish front woman Lisa Elle, with a voice and stage presence that bear strong comparisons to Karen O, I really enjoyed their short 5 song set.

Another unannounced guest followed them onto the stage, David Gedge, of The Wedding Present fame played 4 songs before the Piazza headlining and closing act drew the day in the village to an end. The 60 strong Brythoniad Male Voice Choir, came on stage to a rapturous welcome, and hit the ground running by singing their interpretation of Sunday's headline act New Order's, 'Blue Monday' and they were rewarded by a standing ovation!

They wowed the crowd with a 20 minute set, which was followed by the lantern procession, a ceremonial closing of the village for the night, with giant handmade lanterns of many shapes and sizes. We danced with and followed two giant skeletons back up to the Castle Gardens area, where we arrived just in time for the performance of the day. Primal Scream were just taking to the stage.

The last time I saw the scream they were a shambles, totally out of touch with reality, they couldn't have been further from that memory tonight, with an opening barrage including 'Swastika Eyes' and 'Movin' On Up' they were as tight as could be. Powering through a set heavily laden with hits from 'Screamadelica', much to the delight of the crowd, they showed exactly why they are still a headlining act. It was one of the most powerful and enjoyable performances I have witnessed this year, a perfect booking for this boutique festival which seemed to suit the boys from back in the day on the Manchester scene.

With my back feeling like it was in 4 pieces I retired for the night, truly gutted at having to miss out on Erol Alkan. However this was the least of my troubles, it seems that whilst the painkillers did their job masking the pain on the Saturday, Primal Scream also did their job and had me dancing for an hour and a half non-stop!

The knock on effect of this wasn't truly realised until about 6am Sunday morning, and the resulting pain kept me in bed all day Sunday and unable to continue to explore the festival. Even though the aftermath on Sunday was one of the most painful days of my life, it was defiantly worth the pain, and I will be revisiting number 6 next year. The festival which has the most bizarre and in equal measure beautiful site for any festival I have been to, and I would advise anybody to make the trip. It will be a weekend to remember.

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