Global Gathering's line-up keeps ravers dancing until dawn on day two

Global Gathering 2009 review

By Gary Stafford | Published: Tue 28th Jul 2009

Global Gathering 2009 - Lisa Lashes
Photo credit: Gary Stafford

Global Gathering 2009

Friday 24th to Saturday 25th July 2009
Long Marston Airfield, nr. Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire., CV37 8LL, England MAP
weekend ticket £115, Saturday only £59.50
Daily capacity: 55,000

The Subs
Saturday and we are awoken at 6-30am by a very loud boom boom boom, the garden centre on the airfield has decided to have an impromptu rave party, much to my displeasure, the booming goes on until we make our way to the arena at 2.00pm!!!! Our first port of call for the day is the Tuborg Live Stage where we catch Belgium band The Subs. The whole point of festivals for me is to wander by chance upon a band which you haven't heard of before and get blown away by them. The Subs are that band, they where bloody brilliant and proved to be one of my festival highlights & witnessed by less than 75 people!!!!

With their own take of mixing Dire Straits' Money For Nothing with their own brand of bastardised deejaying, heavy electric guitar and trance they truly are original. Papillon the lead singer / keyboards/ mixer/ DJ jumps into the small crowd & dances with some of them and sings to them individually & works up the crowd to their feet where many join in. A cover version of Prodigy's Breathe is a joy as is their track Fuck That Shit where Papillon get the gathered people to chant "Fuck That Shit" repeatedly. A slightly larger crowd had gathered towards the end of the set probably out of curiosity more than anything, but they where too late!!br />
Dan Black
By the time Dan Black had made it to the stage most of the crowd enticed by The Subs had disappeared and the disappointment on Dan Black's soul destroyed face when he saw the 20 or so people gathered in front of him was a very sorry sight. After a few songs Black asks "Is anyone else getting attacked by these strange bugs or is it just us??? You just stay there whilst we sing the fucking song!!!" Such is the despair... Someone else in the crowd sensing the desperation of the situation shouts out "Sing some Michael Jackson!" To which he replies, "We don't know any." The performance itself is actually very good and I would go & see him again, but I guess this was totally the wrong festival for Dan Black and after their fantastic crowd pleasing performance at this year's Glastonbury must have been a rude awakening for him.

We catch a little of Frankmusik but they don't inspire so we go catch some shut eye ready for the long night ahead. The boom boom from the garden centre is still going on, and with the aid of ear plugs and ear muffs we do manage to get some desperately needed sleep.

Orbital
We get back to the arena in time for Orbital whose Chimes was excellent as always & with a politically questioning inspired light and stage show where well worth the watch.

We then go catch some Above And Beyond who, we are told, have something special planned for their opener. This turned out to have the Boombox stage host an awesome display of computer graphics and sound with a mock computer screen which explodes with a huge ground shaking explosion, then a Godskitchen logo appears across the boombox.

Lisa Lashes
Very, very exciting stuff but unfortunately the following trance music we find a little dull so we make our way across the arena to catch some Lisa Lashes, and Lisa Pin Up. We actually make it until 6-00am extremely tired and danced out, as we made our way to bed the rave in the garden centre is very much still partying on!!!!

The actual Global Gathering site left a lot to be desired both in being dull and very archaic, also the over enthusiastic police presence outside the site was also very sad. We didn't see any police inside the festival all weekend, so make of that what you will. However the quality of the line-up pulled it through and I would go again purely for the fun I had over the weekend.
review by: Gary Stafford

photos by: Gary Stafford


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