Overview

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Over five thousand people gathered in the wooded grounds of a Berkshire country estate for the first ever The Glade electronic dance music festival. Tickets for this eagerly awaited event (a splinter of the Glastonbury Festival dance venue of the same name) quickly sold out as the line-up was unveiled to reveal Breaksday, the first ever dedicated breakbeat arena to feature at a UK festival, alongside the Origin stage, England’s first legal outdoor psy-trance arena. As usual, eFestivals was there to make sure you don’t miss out on the action (even if you did miss out on a ticket)...

While this is the first year the Glade have organised an entirely separate event, the Glade area of the Glastonbury festival has come to be loved and respected by dance music fans as a showcase for the very best in electronica. Chatting to people on the Big Red Bus from the train station early on Thursday afternoon, it was clear that expectations for this festival were extremely high based on what has previously been delivered at Glastonbury. A fabulous atmosphere was already developing on our bus before we had even set foot in the site itself as people shared their beer, sweets and hopes for the weekend. This relaxed and friendly atmosphere was to characterise our Glade weekend.

As we entered the site, it was clear security was rather relaxed. Like Glastonbury, the camping area was not separate from the music arenas, giving the festival a truly "festivally" feel. The stewards who checked our tickets seemed to be happy festival-goers like me rather than the heavy-handed bouncers often seen working at other events. As we approached the main festival gate, bags were being rigorously searched for drugs, and alcohol (banned at this particular festival if not purchased onsite), but it seemed these searches were token, with maybe one in 25 people searched.

Inside, and with our tents pitched and selves properly installed, we realised we had quite some time to kill before the music began the next day. With time on my hands, I noticed two things about the festival that were less than impressive. One was the scarce and badly marked water points that were not always fully functional. One festival-goer put it perfectly as we tried - unsuccessfully - to fill our water bottles at a broken tap: "It’s not as though this is a free party, so ‘Thanks for trying to put water on, guys.’ We’ve paid money for this!" I had to agree, and particularly as temperatures rose on Friday. At a dance festival, provision for water should be amongst organisers’ top priorities.

The festival programme also furthered my annoyance (although at £2.00, it’s true to say it was a bargain when compared to many of its’ contemporaries), as it contained no site map, meaning there was no hope of water points being indicated there either. However as the weekend continued, these small-scale complaints were almost entirely forgotten as I embarked on what was surely one of the best festival weekends I have ever spent.

Rennie Pilgrim’s Breaksday breakbeat arena held us captive for most of the weekend, as it banged out some of the most kicking breaks I have ever heard, on a sound system I can only describe as awesome. Tom Real kicked off the proceedings on Friday with a funky bass-driven set, while BLIM rocked the crowd with some harder breaks. Lancashire’s Koma & Bones had the whole tent bopping to their dirty low-end beats, but it was Rennie Pilgrim and the brilliant MC Chicaboo who truly moved this crowd as the Godfather of Breaks and took to the decks. Marine Parade up-and-comers, Evil 9 were on top form for their Friday headline slot, keeping the crowd moving with a set peppered with their own fantastic tunes. Saturday saw Lincolnshire’s Drummatic Twins whip out a fantastic set of soulful breakbeat grooves, while Atomic Hooligan and Jay Cunning kept it scratchy and Old Skool with a Prodigy-packed set. By nightfall, Nu-Skool leader of the pack, Tayo had the whole tent banging, before Meat Katie moved us into the early morning with frantic breaks that packed a punch.

By Saturday, we had realised that we ought to explore a little more of the festival than just the breakbeat arena, and set off to discover the Liquid tent’s dubby daytime grooves. This beautiful dance arena was filled with plants, greenery and psychedelic decoration, not to mention some of The Glade’s most chilled out, friendly patrons. As one of the festival’s most popular areas, the Liquid tent would have benefited from being larger, particularly after dark when pulsing trance was the order of the night.

The open-air Origin stage was also a festival highlight, showcasing the talents of psy trance DJs from across the globe under a pretty canopy of luminous butterflies. Renowned artists such as Hallucinogen, Silicon Sound and Tristan moved the swelling masses with their storming beats, but it was the enormous dust cloud created by stomping Talamasca fans that demonstrated just how stimulating this underexposed musical genre can truly be.

Saturday saw artists from the experimental Warp label take to the Main Stage, and - although not usually a fan of Warp - I was impressed. While I am not ashamed to admit that Aphex Twin’s frantic beats leave me cold, this is not all that Warp has to offer. I thoroughly enjoyed The Egg’s chilled but lush and swelling live set, before Plaid took to the stage for some more stereotypically Warp-ish live beats that were accessible enough to have even me grooving.

Although thoroughly impressed by Squarepusher’s undeniably brilliant bass playing and sound manipulation, I found his set a bit too “difficult” for my liking, and so I returned to the Breaksday tent for further breakbeat action, culminating with Saturday headliners, The Plump DJs. In previous reviews for this website, I have stated that the Plumps are perhaps past their best. Having now experienced a Plumps set in a more intimate venue, I can only apologise profusely and admit I was wrong: the Plumps simply play best responding to a smaller audience, and on Saturday night they were as Finger Lickin’ good as I’ve always been told they could be.

On Sunday we paid the price for having had such good nights (and mornings) on both Friday and Saturday. At 6pm we woke to the sounds of the tannoy announcing the end of the festival. We had slept right through all of Sunday’s music! Annoyed at first, we made our way to the beautiful Solar Chill area to hook up with some of our newfound friends amongst the tiny tables and over-sized ornamental mushrooms. Our sad mood could not last long though as we amused ourselves with the freely available arts materials, making paper “Wishes” for the Solar Chill wishing tree whilst reminiscing our weekend with our new mates.

Although this was a dance festival, I do not believe it was the beats that made this weekend the phenomenal success that it was. If you ask me, it’s all down to the five thousand or so good, good people who turned out for the event and gave it its’ superb ambience. It was the little things that made this festival: the friendly smiles that greeted you as you entered every tent; the people who decided to pick up the giant red squishy thing and reposition it under the inflatable star centrepiece at 7am; the legendary Talamasca stompers’ dust cloud; the total absence of the “Bollocks!” cry in the campsite; the cheerful, easy-going stewards. Yes, I could get into niggling worries about limited choice of food, temperamental ATM machines, the under-numerous toilets, or bars running dry, but after such an amazing weekend complaints like these have barely registered. I’m struggling to remember the bad bits now (were there any?) and it seems churlish to try.

The Glade’s press release states that the festival “aims to return to the true festival spirit of Glasto ‘72” and in this, it seems to me (and not to mention virtually every other festival goer I spoke to) that the organisers had truly succeeded.

Sitting here and writing this in the afterglow of one of the most memorable festival weekends I have ever spent, I am at a bit of a loss as to how to even begin to describe what those of you not lucky enough to get tickets for the first ever Glade festival have missed. In a word: lots. Namely, the best in contemporary electronic dance music played on cutting edge sound systems; the prettiest and most intricate festival decorations I have ever seen, at an event set in an already idyllic site; fabulous festival weather that (mostly) stayed dry, and the warmest, friendliest, most up-for-it festival people I have ever had the pleasure to encounter.

The first ever Glade festival went off in some style. Let’s just hope the organisers can duplicate their success next year. I for one am keeping my fingers (and everything else) crossed. With a start like this, I do not think it hysterical to wonder if The Glade could well become the new Glastonbury.

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