overview

Over the past few years, The Wickerman Festival, has been fast carving a reputation as the great independent festival of the north, with aspirations, so its growing army of adherents sometimes claim, of growing this into an event capable of tweaking even the beard of the mighty Eavis himself.

Held on very remote farmland near Dundrennan on the Solway Coast in South West Scotland, The Wickerman site is certainly among the most impressive venues for a festival you’re ever likely to see. Fringed on all sides by hills, there’s little around the site to remind you of civilisation, a view reinforced by the 40+ foot Wickerman that looks menacingly over proceedings.

The site itself, at over 120 acres, is enormous for a festival with this headcount. There is more than enough space for camping without getting unhealthily intimate with your neighbours, and separate space for campervans, a quiet area for families, and also a Tipi area, which seemed popular. Services seemed to have been improved from last year, with more water points, and plenty of toilets in the camping area.

Inside the arena, which is open from around 5pm on Thursday, the sense of space continues despite the sheer volume of “stuff” squeezed into the area. As well as the stages the site was really well served with stalls, selling everything from jewellery to army surplus, as well as a really great array of food, ranging from porridge, to burgers, to good veggie stuff.

There was even an onsite funfair, from which a steady assortment of punters were shot into low orbit on a bungee at a cost of £15, (although apparently you could also pay an extra tenner for a dvd of you losing your lunch). If all this weren’t enough, the site also housed a village shop, some form of bizarre outdoor theatre behaviour, as well as a big beer tent by the main stage area. Children were well catered for, with a well staffed kids area running the usual array of craft activities, along with some really cool looking dragon themed stuff run by Dumfries Museum.

Stage wise, there’s also an awful lot crammed in. As well as the main outdoor Summer Isle and Woodward stages, there’s also a big dance music presence, as well as an acoustic stage, Reggae tent, World Music tent, and even a tent staged by the local Scooter club!

The music at Wickerman effectively starts on Friday lunchtime, with only the Reggae & beer tents open Thursday night. The beer tent, this year was actually a bit of a revelation, combining Wickerman’s own Blackbeard the pirate on decks, with a variety of bands, many of whom were very good, throughout the weekend.

The Reggae tent, unsurprisingly plays a lot of Reggae, though also went through phases of playing ska, rocksteady, and at one point when I walked past, some pretty hard jungle too.

The dance music setup at Wickerman is really impressive. There are basically six separate zones, four of which are connected by UV Tunnels. These are the Bhuta tent, which seemed to be playing mainly breaks while I was there, the Votan Stage featuring mainly psy-trance, an ambient chilout zone (the Vishnu Lounge), as well as the Pyramid Zone (a field) and a secret tea room, which was so secret I never found it. All these areas seemed busy, and with music running through till the wee small hours, all were popular.

The Scooter Tent is a fairly big indoor stage put together, I think I’m right in saying, by the local scooter clubs. The musical style in here is eclectic to say the least ranging from odd Scottish rockers The Grim Northern Social, through to the irrepressible, and frankly brilliant Goldblade, along with Bristol’s finest helium punk squealers Vice Squad, through to Rick Buckler’s The Gift, who succeeded in sounding exactly like a sixth form Jam tribute band.

I must confess to not spending a great deal of time in either the Acoustic, or World Music tents over the weekend, other than to catch a glimpse of Tiny Tin Lady, who continue to look like a band that really might break it really big on the folk circuit soon, as well as established festival favourites 3 Daft Monkeys, who were as fast, and great as ever. Though I didn’t see them myself, I heard a number of people rave about the set put together by Figure 5 on Saturday at the World Music Tent. Described by someone as “A bit early Weller”, by the sounds of it, this is the performance of the weekend I wish I’d seen.

Now, I say wish I’d seen Figure 5, because this is the point in the review, much as I’d like to, where I can put off talking about the main stages no longer. Like many I suspect, I watched the main stages line-up develop this year with a combination of incredulity, amusement, and later, when I realised that the whole thing was not as I’d hoped, a wacky practical joke, downright horror. The main stage line-up appeared to have been put together by Salvadore Dali, as a series of the late, the (never really) great, and the mostly dead took to the stage over the weekend.

Friday featured the slightly less bizarre line-up, and started reasonably well, with local battle of the bands winner, Darkwater, then Any Given Day, and even briefly took a turn for the better with reggae and dub legend Eek-a-Mouse. After that Wilko Johnson took it as his personal mission to subjugate the crowd through a form of freeform jazz blues odyssey that had most of our group searching for earplugs. Eddie and the Hot Rods were next up, and I’d be lying if I recognised any song other than “do anything you want to do”, which mainly made me wish they’d just do it somewhere else.

Following an uncharacteristically lacklustre set from the normally reliable New Model Army, the Blockheads took to the stage. The Blockheads were, and indeed still are, a very talented group of musicians, but it was always the great Ian Dury that made this act work. Without him, its just a lot of musicians singing Ian Dury songs, and it’s distinctly uninspiring. Friday finished with Marky Ramone, the only surviving member of the black clad spindly clan of punk. I’d made the decision early to move before Mr Ramone came to the stage, though apparently, once again, I made the wrong call, as for many, Marky Ramone was the highlight of the weekend.

Saturday dawned hot and bright, and again things started promisingly, with good performances from the Albaroot Reggae Band, and blues outfits, Big Strides, and Pama International. It wasn’t long however before the stage was once again over-run with insanity, as the few surviving members of the Animals appeared and gummed their way through a best of set. They were followed by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, who if they’d stayed on stage any longer would surely have been prosecuted for war crimes.

Following on from Kid Ego, redoubtable Welsh duffers The Alarm appeared and treated the audience to an hour long set of songs which all appeared to be ‘68 Guns’, and after The Alarm came local hero Sandi Thom. By this time I was desperate to like at least one act from the main stages, and despite the warnings from my friends to the contrary, I hoped it would be Sandi Thom. But, once again, my hopes were dashed as waves of saccharine, slushy, and occasionally tuneless whittering assaulted the audience.

Saturday finally ended with the now traditional burning of the Wickerman, and sets by flame-headed lunatic Arthur Brown, and Steve Hillage and System 7, but by this time I’d lost the will to live and had headed off to the dance tent.

Now all that might give you the impression that I didn’t like Wickerman 2006, but you’d be wrong. This event, actually represents one of the best kept secrets on the festival circuit at the moment. The location is just fantastic, the site is big, well organised, and superbly laid out, with a great backup organisation, including recycling, medical and security that’s there when you need it but doesn’t get in the way. The atmosphere is great, and the amount of things you get to choose between onsite puts corporate festivals five times this size to shame. And all of this costs the unfeasibly small sum of £50 (plus a fiver parking). There’s an awful, awful lot to really like about the Wickerman. But in the end it’s difficult to get away from what is for my money the most surreal festival line-up I’ve ever seen. Sort that out though, and you’ve got one of the best parties on earth.

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