Moor Music Festival makes summer fun

Settling in after moving from Addingham Moor two years ago, the Moor Music festival nestled in view of the rolling North York moors near Skipton is a small and well formed affair. Sticking with a capacity of 2,500 this gives the festival a sort of large garden party feel, with added live music spanning folk, RnB, rock, indie, dance and more. Add to this the multiple workshops and stuff for the kids to do and you're onto a winner.

The weather is not dampening things either, with a dull Friday hiding the spectacular backdrop of huge hills behind layers of mist and cloud, but not stopping fancy dress Friday, as Mario and Luigi, an orange girl and many pirates celebrate this MMF tradition on the most unlucky of days a year (should have been a Halloween party for Friday 13th!). Sunday sees the new Hat Day, where you can bring your own or there are many stalls where you can buy, make or acquire a hat.

Next to the campsite (situated about 50 yards from the car park, the guys with the luggage transport bikes offering a carrying service have it easy!) we have Dub Luv; no not a Dubstep lovers party but a show and shine type line up of some gorgeous VWs, complete with a small Santa Pod style track for model dubs. Jealous is not the word!

The Northern Green Gathering are here with MMF this year, after a poor year for some festivals that have resulted in many cancellations it is great to see these events pull together and help each other out. The NGG offer workshops, campaigns and are based along sustainable living and green campaigns, with the tents they have here all running off solar power and wind turbines. They are also hiring out fancy dress costumes for a donation, but they also have a pile of free clothes to take away… as the lady said, they got them for free so why not pass them back on? The weekend jam packed with workshops including solar cooking, permaculture, Biochar for Environmental management, putting on a community day (by the group who organise the local Unity Day), apple pressing, cartoon drawing and holistic stress management. All very interesting and involving stuff, highly recommended.

Next to the NGG area is the Sonic area (Sonic Henge, Sonic Headspace and Sonic Geodome), a small but perfectly formed area that hosts lightmaking, Yoga, Tai Chi and meditation long with Best Fest Crest. Around the corner from this area are the healing tents and campaign stalls, some for peace and some for animal cruelty. This more peaceful end of the site then hosts the Ladybird stage, a place full of craft workshops mainly for kids but to be honest I wanted to join in!

Clay, dream catcher making and plenty of pirates, breaking the peace sometimes with pirate shanty lessons through a megaphone! There are also treasure hunts and tug of wars, plenty for kids to do. Other workshops on this bursting list include shadow puppetry, treasure chest making, stool making (the ones you sit on before anyone mentions owt), plastic bag crochet, circus sports day, junk percussion and finishing off with a dance off and cabaret. Phew!

For the older kids and teens other activities happening around this area of the festival are Recycled Records, T shirt stencilling, Bird box making and Video Jockey projections, which sound so interesting I bet the adults are taking the sessions too!

There are also many other workshops offering welly painting, lantern making, pottery, kite making, mad science and more. Walking past the traders (they are an interesting bunch) they offer some interesting ideas, such as Pimp my clothes, Happy Slap make-up, also you can hire real cutlery and take it back (unwashed!) run by Leeds Friends of the Earth, take part in quiz in the sheesh chill out tent, and eat from the range of food traders (the 'Gandhi's Flip Flop' vegetarian Indian stall name made me smile).

Onto the stages now, and being in the moors (well, Northern England) it is a very good idea to have them all covered over. The larger stages; Earl Hickey, Green Room, Homespun and the Moor Social Bar are all in large marquees. The Earl Hickey stage (named after the star of TV show 'My Name Is Earl', although the lack of grand moustaches here is a little disappointing!) plays host over the weekend to such heavy rock, folk and electro bands as Tall Ships, Talk To Angels, The Luminaries, Chickenhawk, Secret Circuits, Box Jellys, Can't Kill the Heat, The Acutes, Gaia, Albert Ross & the Otters, and Oui Bee amongst others. This stage is the stage to go and find the next best band, with the majority of them from Yorkshire.

The Green Room is more of a chill out stage, with graffited sofas in a sea like world watched over by a huge squid! Acts here include Napoleon IIIrd, MooV, Jez Riley French, Big Bamboo, Belleville, Biscuithead and the Biscuit Badgers, Jon Gomm, Mik Artistik's Ego Trip (the last two being highlights of the weekend), Man from Uranus, and Thomas Truax. After the last music at around 3am on the Friday and Saturday this tent turn into a cinema, showing films by Reggae Films UK; Jamdown and Roots Time, plus for those who really can't sleep Lumb Film present Tuck Bushman and the Legend of Piddledown Dale (the title of this film alone makes me wish I would have stayed awake for it!).

The Moor Social is mainly a bar, with seating outside next to a large temporary beach for the kids to play on. Inside there are real ales to buy, plus tunes from Foz, Buckley, Jimpster, Francis Wooff, Chris Duckenfield, Luke Unabomber, Badly Dressed Boy, Kudu and Danny PiG, Tom Smith plus finishing the fest on the Sunday with Family Moor Fest. Basically a huge mix of funk, hip hop, electro, disco and underground house with a few songs your gran might remember thrown in too.

Finally the Homespun bar is sat in it's own little area surrounded by sheep (with good taste too, they don't run to the hills listening to the music!). This stage is for the Dubstep and DnB lovers, featuring Brothers Grime, Doctor P, Joker, Bulldogs, Jack Sparrow, Brackles, DJ Friction & MC ID, Phoenix Pearle, High Pressure Sound System, Subsource and Hijacked DJs.

Outside there is the small stage hosting the ELFM, the festivals own radio station. Here you can catch some small acts who perform and then are interviewed in a graffitied caravan next to the stage, along with workshops (Beat boxing with Vid Warren for 10-16 years olds and Guitar Masterclass with Jon Gomm) as well as on the Friday and Saturday having a radio treasure hunt (The Found Sound treasure hunt), where you hire out some headphones and listen for clues around the site for prizes! Roaming activities include a hug from a Flamborough Troll, pop up party and a 72 hour non stop impossible lecture. Crazy things indeed…

One of my favourite little areas of the festival is The Shed, hosting a thrown together band playing anything they please. One of the many times I passed there they were calling for a singer for 'Don't Stop Believing' by Journey. I'm not sure they found one…

Facilities wise the festival offers cash back at the Moor Social bar, the toilets are minimal in numbers but there are rarely bad queues, Family camping, quiet camping, showers, first aid, and the whole place has such a friendly and chilled out atmosphere there's no trouble what-so-ever. If there were more festivals like this and less like the more commercial run of the mill events that make you feel like a sheep being herded about like in these very fields then the summer would be even more fun.

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