Overview

Lost Vagueness – the saviour of the Night Time experience at Glastonbury have taken the brave step of organising their first multi-day festival. The festival was held in a couple of fields, about the size of their allocation at Glastonbury, in fact by Saturday evening with the smattering of mud and numerous wasted bodies scattered about, it was almost indistinguishable. The format was also similar, with 3 big tents, Casino, Diner, the outdoor stage, fun fair ride and loads of interesting small sideshows.

Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were both fine and dry, with a couple of hours of rain during Saturday afternoon, causing minimal disruption to the party, other than the mass change from stiletto’s to wellies. I’ve no idea how many people where there, capacity was reportedly 2000, and the car parks looked very full, even at 10am on Sunday, but how many people actually paid to get in I’m not sure, most people I met were either on the guest list, performers fence jumpers, or badgers. I really hope LV made a decent profit on the event as it’s a really interesting addition the Festival circuit.

If you've not experienced Lost Vagueness before it's really difficult to explain, but here goes, first off, think of a the weirdest absinthe fuelled bit of “Moulin Rouge”, add the attractions a bit of a warped English Garden Fete, some badgers, a smattering of oldskool Rave atmosphere to a karaoke Ska soundtrack, then get off your head, jump up and down a bit and hey presto.

What LV isn’t is a identikit dance music festival,. You won’t find rows of shops selling ethnic dayglow ashtrays, silly hats (they have to be rented), big name bands and DJs, boozecrewstagparties, Police or a “Message”. As far as music goes, LV are eclectic, totally, and with each act the music changes completely. But just as much fun can be had just wandering about, spotting the puns. You’ll come across Can-Booty-Can, a Can Can ensemble, with it must be said a fine set of bootys. Swinging Elvises, a trapeze outfit who dress as Elvis, Mr Ben’s Changing room in case you came plain and can’t borrow a badgers head, A Lady in a box, Charleston dancers, a the Diner for those of the quiffed persuasion, DIY Disco for those with their own records and banning orders preventing them from playing at home, the Chaps Olympia’s and my personal all time favourite sideshow “The Insect Circus Museum”. My second all time fav, The Miniscule of Sound was also reported to be on site but I didn’t see it.

LV have very cleverly got in at the ground floor of the inevitable antiglam backlash. The Slip Disco Tent, advertises itself for those that are “Bored of Tiara's, old women in silky dresses, young men in second hand dead blokes suits and of course, naked women hanging from the ceiling by meat hooks” Local DJs, opendeck sessions, lots of karaoke and competitions and a fair amount of drinking.

From all accounts a lot of people over did it on Friday night, but Saturday was still busy, never anywhere near as rammed at it gets at Glastonbury, but still busy enough to keep up the atmosphere (the party one, not the real one). I would say that the vast majority of people had actually bothered to make an effort and dressed up, suits of the 19th & 20th Century seemed to be theme for the blokes, while for the ladies it was laddered tights, feathers and ruffles. I felt a bit out our place and severely underdressed, luckily my mate Sheila was on hand and I was able to get a half share in a badgers outfit. I really have no idea what it is about Badgers, but it certainly gets attention. All night people were coming up and stroking my nose, or singing the badger song loudly in my ear or ask me where bodger was. The badger also seems to have some sort of magnetic attraction for women, I was approached by more women in that night than in the whole rest of my life. The negative side to the experience was the ego shattering look of disappointment on their faces when I took the Badgers head off.

Of the music on offer, you’ve got to be open-minded and ready for anything. The highlights of Saturday night in the Ballroom, were the Jaipur Kawa Brass Band, from Rajasthan, loud and colourful and brassy. Next on were the Hiphoptimists, good quirky stuff including a fair amount of swearing and a bit about hooves – an angry 21st century UB40? Then came The Bays. During my normal extensive research (ie half an hour on Google the day after the festival) I have discovered that a) they're one of the UK's most talked about live acts, and b) All they do is turn up and play music to a crowd at a particular moment in time. No loops or backing tracks, just improvisation so you'll never hear the same thing twice. Even without this vital knowledge, I toughly enjoyed their set, a continuous stream of very dancey electro stuff, not easy to categorise.

As the sun came out on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, the last few hundred party people sprawled out on the grass outside the arenas, with that warm comfy feeling of another great night and morning spent in excellent company, new friends and damp rizlas, the peace only punctuated by the tweeting of birds and the “phssh” of Laughing gas cylinders.

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