Electronica/Dance

[bennyhana22]

Well, team...where to start?

 

Apologies for taking a while to get to this. Unfortunately, on Wednesday my usual post-Farm recovery (by gods, needed this year!) evolved into something altogether more...erm...biological. Feel pretty shocking atm, but was it all worth it? What do you think? I'll restrict the ol' missive to just dance, if I may, as to attempt the lot might finish me off - for example, on Saturday I saw 10 band and 5 DJ sets from 1130-0600h. What a day/night...

 

Wednesday

I have a love/hate relationship with Glastonbury Wednesdays. I get so ridiculously excited about the festival, and arriving, getting to camp, getting set up, re-pegging everyone's disgraceful tent corners etc. is just one of my favourite times of the year. As I don't drink, and extracurriculars are not for Wednesdays, the night can be a bit...odd. BUT! Having been fortunate enough to acquire Block9 wristbands, I took a pal into Maceo's for his first time around 9-9.30pm. Showing him where the toilets were I noticed an unusual, but conspicuous, absence of a steward at the little gap between Maceo's and backstage NYCD. Oh my giddy aunt. Heads up, chests out, we strode through like we belonged, to find ourselves behind the Downlow, surrounded by cast and crew, with no-one giving us a second glance as if we weren't supposed to be there. Then, the key decision: into the Downlow through flap 1, or onto the stage with the Queens via flap 2. Rationalising that it was only Wednesday, discretion took the better part of valour and we decided to leave the artistes to their thing. But, into an increasingly busy Downlow we went for my pal's first ever experience of the club. We had lots of fun for an hour or so, seeing the Meat Rack etc. An absolute bonus for us on a night when I generally do not expect to dance.

 

Thursday

What is it with Blawan and Glastonbury and me?! More of that in a moment. I had a great Thursday, probably one of my best ever, dotting myself around site and seeing loads of really good sets (a nod to TORS in the Wishing Well). My Farm2024 dancing proper started in earnest, as planned, with Sugar Free b2b Fonte in the new Assembly in Silver Hayes. My impression: Yeah, nice addition. It's bigger than I had anticipated, well laid out with the DJ as far from the door as possible, so no disruption from punter churn. They've done a good job of making it feel genuinely 'indoors' with the blackout, and it does have a club feel. It was pretty rammed, so dancing in Position A required some gentle but obvious use of space-personal creation! The crowd felt like a 'Silver Hayes' crowd - I don't mean that disparagingly at all, just that the vibe has become quite distinct from, say, the SEC for me. Sound was good. Not great, but good - I'd give it a 7. The set was really enjoyable and, considering it was only 9pm on Thursday, it was just right for me. They played what you'd expect, starting with a lot of minimal, gradually upping the techy-ness and I had a good time and met a nice chap who knew a lot about them (hadn't realised they were a couple) and the parties they throw in London. Solid start.

 

And off to the SEC for one of the UK's most significant techno DJs of the last couple of decades, and a real treat to be getting something is amazing as Blawan on IICON on only Thursday night. YES!!! No...

FFS, man, did I wrong you in a former life? This is the second time that Mr Roberts has cancelled on me in Block9. As I arrived in IICON the word was that the gap was being filled by extended sets by the other DJs on that line-up. Just a few minutes confirmed to me that that wasn't going to do it for me, and so I stomped off! However...it only took me to get to Genosys to find the silver lining in the Blawan cloud - I saw almost all of the live Lance Desardi set and it was blistering. And, more importantly, oh my days, Genosys is back. I'd say the sound was at least as good if not better than before, and for that particular unanticipated live set it was nothing short of incredible. Visuals were as mind-melting as ever, and I was so, so happy to be back at my favourite Glastonbury stage. So, great first half of the game. I won't bore you with the details of the second half, other than to summarise that: (a) The Bimble Inn is a rubbish venue for dance music, not least of all as dancing on the north face of the Eiger is unpleasant and the sound is dreadful. (b) I can confirm that there was NO psytrance at all at Glastonbury 2024, as hopes of psytrance DJ Regan playing me 45mins at 0215h on the Thursday night were dashed when, following a Ghanaian Afro-rap artist in the Wishing Well, said Regan launched into some squelchy, scratchy funky house. My pal was so kind as he knew how much I'd been hoping for just a little bit of one of my favourite genres...but alas, no. No bother, as we'd had a fun night and that Genosys set was sooooo good.

 

Friday

I always see any good dance before the Friday as a real bonus, so I was already ahead of the curve. And, tonight was Dragonfly night, oh my goodness. After leaving a very fun Kate Nash set in Avalon (who knew she was that amazing a performer...?), I sprinted up to SH to try catch half an hour of Kelly Lee Owens, getting my only chance this year to see something on The Levels and leaving myself enough time to get to Arcadia before the big stages emptied out. YES!!! No. 

It seems that the Silver Hayes queuing of last year has now found its, ahem, level - f**king ridiculous. I was there by 2245 and it stretched from the entrance lower left side, waaaaaay back towards Lonely Hearts. Bonkers. Realising immediately that Ms Owens and I were not to enjoy one another's company tonight, I had a gentle wander and made my way to Arcadia. As ever, the mechanical monster had a significant tourist crust which, once passed through, opened up to plenty of space close to and under the Dragonfly. That was the good news. The bad news was that my early arrival meant I had to endure 15 mins of Norman. I really, really don't want to be dance music snobby, but Jeez, Louise - really?? Anyway, once he'd finished, loads of people buggered off and for the first half or more of Joy O's odd set, it was very spacious right under the belly of the beast. I tried a few different positions, quite keen to be able to see a bit more of the amazing structure if I could, only to find, predictably, that once again the sound is best right underneath. And not just best - STELLAR. Easily as good as the Spider at its best, when you are under the speakers attached to the body itself, and so triangulated to the meeting point of the sic outer, and four inner speaker arrays - bloody health, that it amazing sound. As said, I didn't get Joy O at all really, other than a few tracks (more a me thing...), but I do admire DJs with the variety and versatility he has, and he knows how to curate a setlist really well. And so to HAAi b2b KI/KI - if I had felt any anxiety about potentially over-recommending this set, my concerns were assuaged within about 90 seconds. I loved how you could tell who was on the decks by a clear, but rather lovely demarcation - HAAi hitting us with peak time techno weapons, interspersed with KI/KI building up trancey bangers. 65 minutes of pure joy, and I knew immediately at the end that no dance set was going to top that over the festival. They had no time to warm us up, so went hard from the start and it was utter joy. WOW. Amelie followed them with a great set, tempering her more recent style of too hard, too fast, too much reverb on the kick, to more 2019 Amelie - she still does like to break the tracks down to just kick, add hi-hat and build from there a little too often, but she knew how to keep the momentum going and was the perfect segue from the ladies before. Possibly my favourite ever time at Arcadia. I pulled my mate out 5mins before the end to try to get a jump on the Arcadia and SH crowds, so as to minimise delay to the SEC. Sadly, my other mate, who had been at the side of Arcadia, seems to be having an inordinate amount of trouble working out which Arcadia bar was the one opposite the head (to clarify, it's the bar opposite the head), and so once that cat was herded, all time advantage had evaporated! We went as quickly as possible to Bella's Field to find a huge crowd, held at the turnstiles into the SEC who had already been there for 20 mins. After a further 20 mins of the very nice stewards trying to paint a picture of the area being so full and emptying so little that we were never going to be let in...we were let in!

 

I had wondered about stopping into a bit of Azyr, but given the delay and slight anxiety about getting stuck out of Block9 if I went to Unfairground, we did a bit of Python (sounded pretty special on IICON), wandered past Midland on Genosys (just not for this raver, sorry), and ended up at Blind Tiger for 45mins of breakneck speed, breakbeat rave courtesy of Origin8/Propa b2b Hypershe. Bugger me, those guys play fast! But it was fun, and we shuffled off to bed at 5, with the glory of HAAi and KI/KI still ringing in our ears.

 

Saturday

Saturday night is camp rave night. Sadly, four of the very best ravers in our team chose not to come this year (WHAT?!), but the less frequent dancers did not let themselves, or the tradition, down.

After seeing Orbital play a fantastic hit-heavy set on Park (the sound on there now is just magnificent), we made our way casually to the SEC. Popped into Maceo's for a wee while and as it was starting to fill up in there (Maceo's, Saturday night is one of the biggest parties I've ever seen) we made our way to Genosys for OK Williams. Not great. For about FIFTEEN MINUTES!! She started with some slightly suspect bassline, but swiftly moved more into techno which, by half an hour in, was just phenomenal. Absolutely loved this set, and she seemed to enjoy it a lot - thanks for such a strong recommendation, Child 1.

Saw the end of Afrodeutsche and then into Stingray who, as many in the thread have attested, was off the scale good. I'm not sure I've ever heard a DJ sound better on IICON - every transition was into another absolute killer track, each time the crowd looking at one another with that "awwwww!" face of pure joy. But, a plan ain't worth anything unless you stick to it and so, as I had promised myself, I headed over to Genosys in time to see Madison Moore start. This had been the one set I had really targeted, again as another huge rec from Child 1, and also as I had never seen them play before. Oh dear. What is THIS?! They've only gone and done an OK Williams on me. Worry ye not, young ravers, within 15mins they had also found their stride, oh yes indeed. The combination of a killer set, my camp mates who don't really rave, there having the time of their lives, the impeccable sound and visuals of Genosys and the luxury (at Glastonbury) of that non-typical 2 hour set made it one of my favourite sets ever on the Farm. Incredible. I've seen Partok before. I've never enjoyed Partok as much as that. He was fantastic, immediately realising that what we wanted, what we needed was very much more of the same. That, at 4.30am, we just wanted him to smash us with propulsive techno. And did he ever. Without question the best set I've seen by him, and I don't think I've ever seen a bigger, more absolutely up for it crowd at Genosys at 6am. No gurning mass of shuffling zombies here - everyone was just so up for it. What a night!

 

Sunday

I spent some time in the day pondering my strategy. I knew I had to leave dancing at about 2.30am to go and get my coach, so I needed to be on the money in my plans. I settled on getting into the Temple for the beginning of Manni Dee's set at 10.30pm, rather than risk the queue getting too big that it impacted on my limited night. Good decision, Benjamin.

Joined the queue around 10.10pm and waltzed in about 5mins before Manni to hear the last bit of truly unpleasant tech-house from East End Dubs. I actually laughed out loud when, as Mr Dubs finished, the floor of the Temple more than half emptied. What is wrong with these people?😆. 

 

And so to Temple Techno Sunday. Manni Dee warmed up to some bone rattling stuff in the last hour of his set. Now, you know that I knew immediately that HAAi/KI/KI had no chance of being bettered. WRONG!! It wasn't by much but...

Location (when it all comes together, the Temple must be one of the best rave venues in the world, surely?), crowd, Sunday night and none of us want to go home, and then Daria Kolosova playing a faultless 90 mins of the most perfect techno for that time and place. Breathtaking. Chatting to Child 1, I know she can be seen as one of the 'successful, pretty female DJs'. All of that may well be true, but on that evidence, the first adjective has nothing to do with the second. She. Was. On. Fire. And, again, seemed to absolutely love playing the set. @Supernintendo Chalmers - I only wish we'd found each other there 😢.

 

My brain, by this point not necessarily at Krytpon Factor levels of functioning (one for the kids, there), was doing gymnastics, trying to work out the absolute minimum period needed to go from Temple to Oxlyers lock-up to PGA. Despite my earlier plan, I decided that an hour would be enough or, bugger it, I'd just run it. So, I stayed for the first half hour of Kettama who, after a rather predictable first two tracks, unleashed such brilliant techno until I ran out of there at 3am - he closed my festival as well as I could possibly have wished for.

 

OMG.

 

Was that my favourite ever Dance-Glastonbury? I never like to compare too much, as they're all so different and wonderful in their own ways. Was it spectacular? Holy moly, yes.

 

Massive love to @Madyaker for being the best dance buddy one could have - more fun than I can possibly describe ❤️. Was just amazing to meet and dance with @Talcroft - thanks for so much fun. And lovely to see @GrumpyRaver as always. To anyone else I saw who posts in our wonderful thread - thank you for coming to say hello. And thanks for making this such a fab place to share our experiences, as I, most likely, shuffle off to my customary post-festival hibernation. I'll be around a bit, I'm sure, and will likely put in a little report post-Shambala.

 

Let's do it all again next year, you beautiful people.

 

Benny
xx

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

3 minutes ago, bennyhana22 said:

Well, team...where to start?

 

Apologies for taking a while to get to this. Unfortunately, on Wednesday my usual post-Farm recovery (by gods, needed this year!) evolved into something altogether more...erm...biological. Feel pretty shocking atm, but was it all worth it? What do you think? I'll restrict the ol' missive to just dance, if I may, as to attempt the lot might finish me off - for example, on Saturday I saw 10 band and 5 DJ sets from 1130-0600h. What a day/night...

 

Wednesday

I have a love/hate relationship with Glastonbury Wednesdays. I get so ridiculously excited about the festival, and arriving, getting to camp, getting set up, re-pegging everyone's disgraceful tent corners etc. is just one of my favourite times of the year. As I don't drink, and extracurriculars are not for Wednesdays, the night can be a bit...odd. BUT! Having been fortunate enough to acquire Block9 wristbands, I took a pal into Maceo's for his first time around 9-9.30pm. Showing him where the toilets were I noticed an unusual, but conspicuous, absence of a steward at the little gap between Maceo's and backstage NYCD. Oh my giddy aunt. Heads up, chests out, we strode through like we belonged, to find ourselves behind the Downlow, surrounded by cast and crew, with no-one giving us a second glance as if we weren't supposed to be there. Then, the key decision: into the Downlow through flap 1, or onto the stage with the Queens via flap 2. Rationalising that it was only Wednesday, discretion took the better part of valour and we decided to leave the artistes to their thing. But, into an increasingly busy Downlow we went for my pal's first ever experience of the club. We had lots of fun for an hour or so, seeing the Meat Rack etc. An absolute bonus for us on a night when I generally do not expect to dance.

 

Thursday

What is it with Blawan and Glastonbury and me?! More of that in a moment. I had a great Thursday, probably one of my best ever, dotting myself around site and seeing loads of really good sets (a nod to TORS in the Wishing Well). My Farm2024 dancing proper started in earnest, as planned, with Sugar Free b2b Fonte in the new Assembly in Silver Hayes. My impression: Yeah, nice addition. It's bigger than I had anticipated, well laid out with the DJ as far from the door as possible, so no disruption from punter churn. They've done a good job of making it feel genuinely 'indoors' with the blackout, and it does have a club feel. It was pretty rammed, so dancing in Position A required some gentle but obvious use of space-personal creation! The crowd felt like a 'Silver Hayes' crowd - I don't mean that disparagingly at all, just that the vibe has become quite distinct from, say, the SEC for me. Sound was good. Not great, but good - I'd give it a 7. The set was really enjoyable and, considering it was only 9pm on Thursday, it was just right for me. They played what you'd expect, starting with a lot of minimal, gradually upping the techy-ness and I had a good time and met a nice chap who knew a lot about them (hadn't realised they were a couple) and the parties they throw in London. Solid start.

 

And off to the SEC for one of the UK's most significant techno DJs of the last couple of decades, and a real treat to be getting something is amazing as Blawan on IICON on only Thursday night. YES!!! No...

FFS, man, did I wrong you in a former life? This is the second time that Mr Roberts has cancelled on me in Block9. As I arrived in IICON the word was that the gap was being filled by extended sets by the other DJs on that line-up. Just a few minutes confirmed to me that that wasn't going to do it for me, and so I stomped off! However...it only took me to get to Genosys to find the silver lining in the Blawan cloud - I saw almost all of the live Lance Desardi set and it was blistering. And, more importantly, oh my days, Genosys is back. I'd say the sound was at least as good if not better than before, and for that particular unanticipated live set it was nothing short of incredible. Visuals were as mind-melting as ever, and I was so, so happy to be back at my favourite Glastonbury stage. So, great first half of the game. I won't bore you with the details of the second half, other than to summarise that: (a) The Bimble Inn is a rubbish venue for dance music, not least of all as dancing on the north face of the Eiger is unpleasant and the sound is dreadful. (b) I can confirm that there was NO psytrance at all at Glastonbury 2024, as hopes of psytrance DJ Regan playing me 45mins at 0215h on the Thursday night were dashed when, following a Ghanaian Afro-rap artist in the Wishing Well, said Regan launched into some squelchy, scratchy funky house. My pal was so kind as he knew how much I'd been hoping for just a little bit of one of my favourite genres...but alas, no. No bother, as we'd had a fun night and that Genosys set was sooooo good.

 

Friday

I always see any good dance before the Friday as a real bonus, so I was already ahead of the curve. And, tonight was Dragonfly night, oh my goodness. After leaving a very fun Kate Nash set in Avalon (who knew she was that amazing a performer...?), I sprinted up to SH to try catch half an hour of Kelly Lee Owens, getting my only chance this year to see something on The Levels and leaving myself enough time to get to Arcadia before the big stages emptied out. YES!!! No. 

It seems that the Silver Hayes queuing of last year has now found its, ahem, level - f**king ridiculous. I was there by 2245 and it stretched from the entrance lower left side, waaaaaay back towards Lonely Hearts. Bonkers. Realising immediately that Ms Owens and I were not to enjoy one another's company tonight, I had a gentle wander and made my way to Arcadia. As ever, the mechanical monster had a significant tourist crust which, once passed through, opened up to plenty of space close to and under the Dragonfly. That was the good news. The bad news was that my early arrival meant I had to endure 15 mins of Norman. I really, really don't want to be dance music snobby, but Jeez, Louise - really?? Anyway, once he'd finished, loads of people buggered off and for the first half or more of Joy O's odd set, it was very spacious right under the belly of the beast. I tried a few different positions, quite keen to be able to see a bit more of the amazing structure if I could, only to find, predictably, that once again the sound is best right underneath. And not just best - STELLAR. Easily as good as the Spider at its best, when you are under the speakers attached to the body itself, and so triangulated to the meeting point of the sic outer, and four inner speaker arrays - bloody health, that it amazing sound. As said, I didn't get Joy O at all really, other than a few tracks (more a me thing...), but I do admire DJs with the variety and versatility he has, and he knows how to curate a setlist really well. And so to HAAi b2b KI/KI - if I had felt any anxiety about potentially over-recommending this set, my concerns were assuaged within about 90 seconds. I loved how you could tell who was on the decks by a clear, but rather lovely demarcation - HAAi hitting us with peak time techno weapons, interspersed with KI/KI building up trancey bangers. 65 minutes of pure joy, and I knew immediately at the end that no dance set was going to top that over the festival. They had no time to warm us up, so went hard from the start and it was utter joy. WOW. Amelie followed them with a great set, tempering her more recent style of too hard, too fast, too much reverb on the kick, to more 2019 Amelie - she still does like to break the tracks down to just kick, add hi-hat and build from there a little too often, but she knew how to keep the momentum going and was the perfect segue from the ladies before. Possibly my favourite ever time at Arcadia. I pulled my mate out 5mins before the end to try to get a jump on the Arcadia and SH crowds, so as to minimise delay to the SEC. Sadly, my other mate, who had been at the side of Arcadia, seems to be having an inordinate amount of trouble working out which Arcadia bar was the one opposite the head (to clarify, it's the bar opposite the head), and so once that cat was herded, all time advantage had evaporated! We went as quickly as possible to Bella's Field to find a huge crowd, held at the turnstiles into the SEC who had already been there for 20 mins. After a further 20 mins of the very nice stewards trying to paint a picture of the area being so full and emptying so little that we were never going to be let in...we were let in!

 

I had wondered about stopping into a bit of Azyr, but given the delay and slight anxiety about getting stuck out of Block9 if I went to Unfairground, we did a bit of Python (sounded pretty special on IICON), wandered past Midland on Genosys (just not for this raver, sorry), and ended up at Blind Tiger for 45mins of breakneck speed, breakbeat rave courtesy of Origin8/Propa b2b Hypershe. Bugger me, those guys play fast! But it was fun, and we shuffled off to bed at 5, with the glory of HAAi and KI/KI still ringing in our ears.

 

Saturday

Saturday night is camp rave night. Sadly, four of the very best ravers in our team chose not to come this year (WHAT?!), but the less frequent dancers did not let themselves, or the tradition, down.

After seeing Orbital play a fantastic hit-heavy set on Park (the sound on there now is just magnificent), we made our way casually to the SEC. Popped into Maceo's for a wee while and as it was starting to fill up in there (Maceo's, Saturday night is one of the biggest parties I've ever seen) we made our way to Genosys for OK Williams. Not great. For about FIFTEEN MINUTES!! She started with some slightly suspect bassline, but swiftly moved more into techno which, by half an hour in, was just phenomenal. Absolutely loved this set, and she seemed to enjoy it a lot - thanks for such a strong recommendation, Child 1.

Saw the end of Afrodeutsche and then into Stingray who, as many in the thread have attested, was off the scale good. I'm not sure I've ever heard a DJ sound better on IICON - every transition was into another absolute killer track, each time the crowd looking at one another with that "awwwww!" face of pure joy. But, a plan ain't worth anything unless you stick to it and so, as I had promised myself, I headed over to Genosys in time to see Madison Moore start. This had been the one set I had really targeted, again as another huge rec from Child 1, and also as I had never seen them play before. Oh dear. What is THIS?! They've only gone and done an OK Williams on me. Worry ye not, young ravers, within 15mins they had also found their stride, oh yes indeed. The combination of a killer set, my camp mates who don't really rave, there having the time of their lives, the impeccable sound and visuals of Genosys and the luxury (at Glastonbury) of that non-typical 2 hour set made it one of my favourite sets ever on the Farm. Incredible. I've seen Partok before. I've never enjoyed Partok as much as that. He was fantastic, immediately realising that what we wanted, what we needed was very much more of the same. That, at 4.30am, we just wanted him to smash us with propulsive techno. And did he ever. Without question the best set I've seen by him, and I don't think I've ever seen a bigger, more absolutely up for it crowd at Genosys at 6am. No gurning mass of shuffling zombies here - everyone was just so up for it. What a night!

 

Sunday

I spent some time in the day pondering my strategy. I knew I had to leave dancing at about 2.30am to go and get my coach, so I needed to be on the money in my plans. I settled on getting into the Temple for the beginning of Manni Dee's set at 10.30pm, rather than risk the queue getting too big that it impacted on my limited night. Good decision, Benjamin.

Joined the queue around 10.10pm and waltzed in about 5mins before Manni to hear the last bit of truly unpleasant tech-house from East End Dubs. I actually laughed out loud when, as Mr Dubs finished, the floor of the Temple more than half emptied. What is wrong with these people?😆. 

 

And so to Temple Techno Sunday. Manni Dee warmed up to some bone rattling stuff in the last hour of his set. Now, you know that I knew immediately that HAAi/KI/KI had no chance of being bettered. WRONG!! It wasn't by much but...

Location (when it all comes together, the Temple must be one of the best rave venues in the world, surely?), crowd, Sunday night and none of us want to go home, and then Daria Kolosova playing a faultless 90 mins of the most perfect techno for that time and place. Breathtaking. Chatting to Child 1, I know she can be seen as one of the 'successful, pretty female DJs'. All of that may well be true, but on that evidence, the first adjective has nothing to do with the second. She. Was. On. Fire. And, again, seemed to absolutely love playing the set. @Supernintendo Chalmers - I only wish we'd found each other there 😢.

 

My brain, by this point not necessarily at Krytpon Factor levels of functioning (one for the kids, there), was doing gymnastics, trying to work out the absolute minimum period needed to go from Temple to Oxlyers lock-up to PGA. Despite my earlier plan, I decided that an hour would be enough or, bugger it, I'd just run it. So, I stayed for the first half hour of Kettama who, after a rather predictable first two tracks, unleashed such brilliant techno until I ran out of there at 3am - he closed my festival as well as I could possibly have wished for.

 

OMG.

 

Was that my favourite ever Dance-Glastonbury? I never like to compare too much, as they're all so different and wonderful in their own ways. Was it spectacular? Holy moly, yes.

 

Massive love to @Madyaker for being the best dance buddy one could have - more fun than I can possibly describe ❤️. Was just amazing to meet and dance with @Talcroft - thanks for so much fun. And lovely to see @GrumpyRaver as always. To anyone else I saw who posts in our wonderful thread - thank you for coming to say hello. And thanks for making this such a fab place to share our experiences, as I, most likely, shuffle off to my customary post-festival hibernation. I'll be around a bit, I'm sure, and will likely put in a little report post-Shambala.

 

Let's do it all again next year, you beautiful people.

 

Benny
xx

 

This review is worth £335 + booking fee alone. 

 

I got your messages Ben...unfortunately much later than you sent them 😭 My signal SUCKED this year, especially in the SE corner. I'll get round to responding once I've shaken off this fourth round of COVID.

 

And yes, that Daria Kolosova set was fire. We were up on the bleachers above the ensuing chaos below. I did not stop for the entire set. Absolutely blistering. And by pure accident my friend and I just queued up on a whim. We were supposed to be going to Assembly for Stingray.

 

I said it earlier this week. Of all my 31 years of raving across the world, I've yet to see a micro venue that tickets all the boxes like The Temple. It's so beautiful. If they ever got rid of it, I'd seriously consider jacking the festival.

 

Glad you had a good time and you managed to spend some quality time with a few E&Ders. 

 

What's next? Will we see you at Junction 2? That Saturday has your name on it. I'll be there. 

[Trunks1993]

23 minutes ago, bennyhana22 said:

Well, team...where to start?

 

Apologies for taking a while to get to this. Unfortunately, on Wednesday my usual post-Farm recovery (by gods, needed this year!) evolved into something altogether more...erm...biological. Feel pretty shocking atm, but was it all worth it? What do you think? I'll restrict the ol' missive to just dance, if I may, as to attempt the lot might finish me off - for example, on Saturday I saw 10 band and 5 DJ sets from 1130-0600h. What a day/night...

 

Wednesday

I have a love/hate relationship with Glastonbury Wednesdays. I get so ridiculously excited about the festival, and arriving, getting to camp, getting set up, re-pegging everyone's disgraceful tent corners etc. is just one of my favourite times of the year. As I don't drink, and extracurriculars are not for Wednesdays, the night can be a bit...odd. BUT! Having been fortunate enough to acquire Block9 wristbands, I took a pal into Maceo's for his first time around 9-9.30pm. Showing him where the toilets were I noticed an unusual, but conspicuous, absence of a steward at the little gap between Maceo's and backstage NYCD. Oh my giddy aunt. Heads up, chests out, we strode through like we belonged, to find ourselves behind the Downlow, surrounded by cast and crew, with no-one giving us a second glance as if we weren't supposed to be there. Then, the key decision: into the Downlow through flap 1, or onto the stage with the Queens via flap 2. Rationalising that it was only Wednesday, discretion took the better part of valour and we decided to leave the artistes to their thing. But, into an increasingly busy Downlow we went for my pal's first ever experience of the club. We had lots of fun for an hour or so, seeing the Meat Rack etc. An absolute bonus for us on a night when I generally do not expect to dance.

 

Thursday

What is it with Blawan and Glastonbury and me?! More of that in a moment. I had a great Thursday, probably one of my best ever, dotting myself around site and seeing loads of really good sets (a nod to TORS in the Wishing Well). My Farm2024 dancing proper started in earnest, as planned, with Sugar Free b2b Fonte in the new Assembly in Silver Hayes. My impression: Yeah, nice addition. It's bigger than I had anticipated, well laid out with the DJ as far from the door as possible, so no disruption from punter churn. They've done a good job of making it feel genuinely 'indoors' with the blackout, and it does have a club feel. It was pretty rammed, so dancing in Position A required some gentle but obvious use of space-personal creation! The crowd felt like a 'Silver Hayes' crowd - I don't mean that disparagingly at all, just that the vibe has become quite distinct from, say, the SEC for me. Sound was good. Not great, but good - I'd give it a 7. The set was really enjoyable and, considering it was only 9pm on Thursday, it was just right for me. They played what you'd expect, starting with a lot of minimal, gradually upping the techy-ness and I had a good time and met a nice chap who knew a lot about them (hadn't realised they were a couple) and the parties they throw in London. Solid start.

 

And off to the SEC for one of the UK's most significant techno DJs of the last couple of decades, and a real treat to be getting something is amazing as Blawan on IICON on only Thursday night. YES!!! No...

FFS, man, did I wrong you in a former life? This is the second time that Mr Roberts has cancelled on me in Block9. As I arrived in IICON the word was that the gap was being filled by extended sets by the other DJs on that line-up. Just a few minutes confirmed to me that that wasn't going to do it for me, and so I stomped off! However...it only took me to get to Genosys to find the silver lining in the Blawan cloud - I saw almost all of the live Lance Desardi set and it was blistering. And, more importantly, oh my days, Genosys is back. I'd say the sound was at least as good if not better than before, and for that particular unanticipated live set it was nothing short of incredible. Visuals were as mind-melting as ever, and I was so, so happy to be back at my favourite Glastonbury stage. So, great first half of the game. I won't bore you with the details of the second half, other than to summarise that: (a) The Bimble Inn is a rubbish venue for dance music, not least of all as dancing on the north face of the Eiger is unpleasant and the sound is dreadful. (b) I can confirm that there was NO psytrance at all at Glastonbury 2024, as hopes of psytrance DJ Regan playing me 45mins at 0215h on the Thursday night were dashed when, following a Ghanaian Afro-rap artist in the Wishing Well, said Regan launched into some squelchy, scratchy funky house. My pal was so kind as he knew how much I'd been hoping for just a little bit of one of my favourite genres...but alas, no. No bother, as we'd had a fun night and that Genosys set was sooooo good.

 

Friday

I always see any good dance before the Friday as a real bonus, so I was already ahead of the curve. And, tonight was Dragonfly night, oh my goodness. After leaving a very fun Kate Nash set in Avalon (who knew she was that amazing a performer...?), I sprinted up to SH to try catch half an hour of Kelly Lee Owens, getting my only chance this year to see something on The Levels and leaving myself enough time to get to Arcadia before the big stages emptied out. YES!!! No. 

It seems that the Silver Hayes queuing of last year has now found its, ahem, level - f**king ridiculous. I was there by 2245 and it stretched from the entrance lower left side, waaaaaay back towards Lonely Hearts. Bonkers. Realising immediately that Ms Owens and I were not to enjoy one another's company tonight, I had a gentle wander and made my way to Arcadia. As ever, the mechanical monster had a significant tourist crust which, once passed through, opened up to plenty of space close to and under the Dragonfly. That was the good news. The bad news was that my early arrival meant I had to endure 15 mins of Norman. I really, really don't want to be dance music snobby, but Jeez, Louise - really?? Anyway, once he'd finished, loads of people buggered off and for the first half or more of Joy O's odd set, it was very spacious right under the belly of the beast. I tried a few different positions, quite keen to be able to see a bit more of the amazing structure if I could, only to find, predictably, that once again the sound is best right underneath. And not just best - STELLAR. Easily as good as the Spider at its best, when you are under the speakers attached to the body itself, and so triangulated to the meeting point of the sic outer, and four inner speaker arrays - bloody health, that it amazing sound. As said, I didn't get Joy O at all really, other than a few tracks (more a me thing...), but I do admire DJs with the variety and versatility he has, and he knows how to curate a setlist really well. And so to HAAi b2b KI/KI - if I had felt any anxiety about potentially over-recommending this set, my concerns were assuaged within about 90 seconds. I loved how you could tell who was on the decks by a clear, but rather lovely demarcation - HAAi hitting us with peak time techno weapons, interspersed with KI/KI building up trancey bangers. 65 minutes of pure joy, and I knew immediately at the end that no dance set was going to top that over the festival. They had no time to warm us up, so went hard from the start and it was utter joy. WOW. Amelie followed them with a great set, tempering her more recent style of too hard, too fast, too much reverb on the kick, to more 2019 Amelie - she still does like to break the tracks down to just kick, add hi-hat and build from there a little too often, but she knew how to keep the momentum going and was the perfect segue from the ladies before. Possibly my favourite ever time at Arcadia. I pulled my mate out 5mins before the end to try to get a jump on the Arcadia and SH crowds, so as to minimise delay to the SEC. Sadly, my other mate, who had been at the side of Arcadia, seems to be having an inordinate amount of trouble working out which Arcadia bar was the one opposite the head (to clarify, it's the bar opposite the head), and so once that cat was herded, all time advantage had evaporated! We went as quickly as possible to Bella's Field to find a huge crowd, held at the turnstiles into the SEC who had already been there for 20 mins. After a further 20 mins of the very nice stewards trying to paint a picture of the area being so full and emptying so little that we were never going to be let in...we were let in!

 

I had wondered about stopping into a bit of Azyr, but given the delay and slight anxiety about getting stuck out of Block9 if I went to Unfairground, we did a bit of Python (sounded pretty special on IICON), wandered past Midland on Genosys (just not for this raver, sorry), and ended up at Blind Tiger for 45mins of breakneck speed, breakbeat rave courtesy of Origin8/Propa b2b Hypershe. Bugger me, those guys play fast! But it was fun, and we shuffled off to bed at 5, with the glory of HAAi and KI/KI still ringing in our ears.

 

Saturday

Saturday night is camp rave night. Sadly, four of the very best ravers in our team chose not to come this year (WHAT?!), but the less frequent dancers did not let themselves, or the tradition, down.

After seeing Orbital play a fantastic hit-heavy set on Park (the sound on there now is just magnificent), we made our way casually to the SEC. Popped into Maceo's for a wee while and as it was starting to fill up in there (Maceo's, Saturday night is one of the biggest parties I've ever seen) we made our way to Genosys for OK Williams. Not great. For about FIFTEEN MINUTES!! She started with some slightly suspect bassline, but swiftly moved more into techno which, by half an hour in, was just phenomenal. Absolutely loved this set, and she seemed to enjoy it a lot - thanks for such a strong recommendation, Child 1.

Saw the end of Afrodeutsche and then into Stingray who, as many in the thread have attested, was off the scale good. I'm not sure I've ever heard a DJ sound better on IICON - every transition was into another absolute killer track, each time the crowd looking at one another with that "awwwww!" face of pure joy. But, a plan ain't worth anything unless you stick to it and so, as I had promised myself, I headed over to Genosys in time to see Madison Moore start. This had been the one set I had really targeted, again as another huge rec from Child 1, and also as I had never seen them play before. Oh dear. What is THIS?! They've only gone and done an OK Williams on me. Worry ye not, young ravers, within 15mins they had also found their stride, oh yes indeed. The combination of a killer set, my camp mates who don't really rave, there having the time of their lives, the impeccable sound and visuals of Genosys and the luxury (at Glastonbury) of that non-typical 2 hour set made it one of my favourite sets ever on the Farm. Incredible. I've seen Partok before. I've never enjoyed Partok as much as that. He was fantastic, immediately realising that what we wanted, what we needed was very much more of the same. That, at 4.30am, we just wanted him to smash us with propulsive techno. And did he ever. Without question the best set I've seen by him, and I don't think I've ever seen a bigger, more absolutely up for it crowd at Genosys at 6am. No gurning mass of shuffling zombies here - everyone was just so up for it. What a night!

 

Sunday

I spent some time in the day pondering my strategy. I knew I had to leave dancing at about 2.30am to go and get my coach, so I needed to be on the money in my plans. I settled on getting into the Temple for the beginning of Manni Dee's set at 10.30pm, rather than risk the queue getting too big that it impacted on my limited night. Good decision, Benjamin.

Joined the queue around 10.10pm and waltzed in about 5mins before Manni to hear the last bit of truly unpleasant tech-house from East End Dubs. I actually laughed out loud when, as Mr Dubs finished, the floor of the Temple more than half emptied. What is wrong with these people?😆. 

 

And so to Temple Techno Sunday. Manni Dee warmed up to some bone rattling stuff in the last hour of his set. Now, you know that I knew immediately that HAAi/KI/KI had no chance of being bettered. WRONG!! It wasn't by much but...

Location (when it all comes together, the Temple must be one of the best rave venues in the world, surely?), crowd, Sunday night and none of us want to go home, and then Daria Kolosova playing a faultless 90 mins of the most perfect techno for that time and place. Breathtaking. Chatting to Child 1, I know she can be seen as one of the 'successful, pretty female DJs'. All of that may well be true, but on that evidence, the first adjective has nothing to do with the second. She. Was. On. Fire. And, again, seemed to absolutely love playing the set. @Supernintendo Chalmers - I only wish we'd found each other there 😢.

 

My brain, by this point not necessarily at Krytpon Factor levels of functioning (one for the kids, there), was doing gymnastics, trying to work out the absolute minimum period needed to go from Temple to Oxlyers lock-up to PGA. Despite my earlier plan, I decided that an hour would be enough or, bugger it, I'd just run it. So, I stayed for the first half hour of Kettama who, after a rather predictable first two tracks, unleashed such brilliant techno until I ran out of there at 3am - he closed my festival as well as I could possibly have wished for.

 

OMG.

 

Was that my favourite ever Dance-Glastonbury? I never like to compare too much, as they're all so different and wonderful in their own ways. Was it spectacular? Holy moly, yes.

 

Massive love to @Madyaker for being the best dance buddy one could have - more fun than I can possibly describe ❤️. Was just amazing to meet and dance with @Talcroft - thanks for so much fun. And lovely to see @GrumpyRaver as always. To anyone else I saw who posts in our wonderful thread - thank you for coming to say hello. And thanks for making this such a fab place to share our experiences, as I, most likely, shuffle off to my customary post-festival hibernation. I'll be around a bit, I'm sure, and will likely put in a little report post-Shambala.

 

Let's do it all again next year, you beautiful people.

 

Benny
xx

Legend! Certainly was a good one. Friday in particular…..started at 11am with Sofia Kourtesis, ended at 6am with Midland. 8 bands and some thumping techno at Arcadia in between. Broke me a bit tbh

[Talcroft]

37 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

 

This review is worth £335 + booking fee alone. 

 

I got your messages Ben...unfortunately much later than you sent them 😭 My signal SUCKED this year, especially in the SE corner. I'll get round to responding once I've shaken off this fourth round of COVID.

 

And yes, that Daria Kolosova set was fire. We were up on the bleachers above the ensuing chaos below. I did not stop for the entire set. Absolutely blistering. And by pure accident my friend and I just queued up on a whim. We were supposed to be going to Assembly for Stingray.

 

I said it earlier this week. Of all my 31 years of raving across the world, I've yet to see a micro venue that tickets all the boxes like The Temple. It's so beautiful. If they ever got rid of it, I'd seriously consider jacking the festival.

 

Glad you had a good time and you managed to spend some quality time with a few E&Ders. 

 

What's next? Will we see you at Junction 2? That Saturday has your name on it. I'll be there. 

We were in Assembly at the same time on Thur before we actually got that dance! 

Thanks buddy for taking such a relative newbie under your wing for a bit. Everything crossed for a bit less working and a bit more dancing next year. Until then sir! 

[Upside down frowner]

Another amazing dance-heavy festival. Saw very few bands. My hightlight was probably Faithless in the Glade. The atmosphere at the front was bouncing to say it was early on. We only hor the tickets in the resale, so a rushed build up this year but I had kept tabs on this thread all year - it's the best!

 

Wednesday we bumbled around the SEC. Sat at the Stone Circle until 8/9am

 

 

Thursday - Sportsbanger for Ewan McVicor and DJ f**koff where the crowd was good but the Mc sucked. Then it was good to get back to the original Genosys for DJ Tennis/Demi Riquisimo which was good. Really looked forward to Dixon at San Remo but it was unbearbale busy inside, lasted 40minutes but left when you couldn't lift a shoulder, let alone dance - the music was spot on. Headed to Silver Heyes to confirm Levels was full for Dove, watched Almass Badat b2b Arthi (me neither?!?) on lonely heart which was fun then headed back to San Remo for Job jobse. The crowd went right back up the hill, music was exactly what I wanted to hear but it was too quiet being far away. Early night at 3/4am.

 

Fri - my wife arrived at 4pm. Confidence Man for the cheese. Then Glade for K-class which was really good. Must have gone somewhere before returning for Faithless which was one of highlights of the festival, like K-Class the crowd front right were bouncing.

 

Danced with friends in the Dome for P-RALLEL then had a heartbreaking moment as my friends went Arcadia for HAAI/KI-KI and the Mrs' choice was BICEP. We got in early, had loads of space at the front, personally didn't enjoy it as much as West Holts 2022. Couldnt understand the music stopping (since reading a medical emergency on here) 3 steps back into what we presumed must have been a crush, from space seemed daft at the front, 3 steps forward. Afterwards we headed to Unfairground for Azyr which was banging! Then platform 23 before the Mrs had enough. 

 

Sat - Assembly for four hours, Job Jobse into HAAI/Saoirse - not the best ive heard from them all but dancing in the sun was a winner with a good crowd. Went SEC, then long walk to Eric Prydz got 30mins before walking back to SEC! Couldnt get into the music for Dj Stingray at IICON, so headed to Genosys for a dance then people watched near Arrivals for a good while. Ended up walking Mrs to PedC then back to the stone circle until 10am!

 

Sunday - a good hour at Craig Richards Fabric 25 whilst the Mrs watched Avril with a friend. Met some very sound people. Glade for one of the best sets all weekend Logic1000 then a little Groove Armada. Last drop of dance was the end of JUSTICE which sounded amazing from the back. Sunday evening is always early for us with a long drive early Monday, we left around 12am

 

Such a good year but I didnt get to craft/healing/crossiant/green futures/tipi/nothing in theatre/acoustic/woodies/levels or my favourite venue Temple... 

 

Apologies for the long read! Hopefully the ticket gods smile on us in October! 

[GrumpyRaver]

14 hours ago, bennyhana22 said:

Well, team...where to start?

 

Apologies for taking a while to get to this. Unfortunately, on Wednesday my usual post-Farm recovery (by gods, needed this year!) evolved into something altogether more...erm...biological. Feel pretty shocking atm, but was it all worth it? What do you think? I'll restrict the ol' missive to just dance, if I may, as to attempt the lot might finish me off - for example, on Saturday I saw 10 band and 5 DJ sets from 1130-0600h. What a day/night...

 

Wednesday

I have a love/hate relationship with Glastonbury Wednesdays. I get so ridiculously excited about the festival, and arriving, getting to camp, getting set up, re-pegging everyone's disgraceful tent corners etc. is just one of my favourite times of the year. As I don't drink, and extracurriculars are not for Wednesdays, the night can be a bit...odd. BUT! Having been fortunate enough to acquire Block9 wristbands, I took a pal into Maceo's for his first time around 9-9.30pm. Showing him where the toilets were I noticed an unusual, but conspicuous, absence of a steward at the little gap between Maceo's and backstage NYCD. Oh my giddy aunt. Heads up, chests out, we strode through like we belonged, to find ourselves behind the Downlow, surrounded by cast and crew, with no-one giving us a second glance as if we weren't supposed to be there. Then, the key decision: into the Downlow through flap 1, or onto the stage with the Queens via flap 2. Rationalising that it was only Wednesday, discretion took the better part of valour and we decided to leave the artistes to their thing. But, into an increasingly busy Downlow we went for my pal's first ever experience of the club. We had lots of fun for an hour or so, seeing the Meat Rack etc. An absolute bonus for us on a night when I generally do not expect to dance.

 

Thursday

What is it with Blawan and Glastonbury and me?! More of that in a moment. I had a great Thursday, probably one of my best ever, dotting myself around site and seeing loads of really good sets (a nod to TORS in the Wishing Well). My Farm2024 dancing proper started in earnest, as planned, with Sugar Free b2b Fonte in the new Assembly in Silver Hayes. My impression: Yeah, nice addition. It's bigger than I had anticipated, well laid out with the DJ as far from the door as possible, so no disruption from punter churn. They've done a good job of making it feel genuinely 'indoors' with the blackout, and it does have a club feel. It was pretty rammed, so dancing in Position A required some gentle but obvious use of space-personal creation! The crowd felt like a 'Silver Hayes' crowd - I don't mean that disparagingly at all, just that the vibe has become quite distinct from, say, the SEC for me. Sound was good. Not great, but good - I'd give it a 7. The set was really enjoyable and, considering it was only 9pm on Thursday, it was just right for me. They played what you'd expect, starting with a lot of minimal, gradually upping the techy-ness and I had a good time and met a nice chap who knew a lot about them (hadn't realised they were a couple) and the parties they throw in London. Solid start.

 

And off to the SEC for one of the UK's most significant techno DJs of the last couple of decades, and a real treat to be getting something is amazing as Blawan on IICON on only Thursday night. YES!!! No...

FFS, man, did I wrong you in a former life? This is the second time that Mr Roberts has cancelled on me in Block9. As I arrived in IICON the word was that the gap was being filled by extended sets by the other DJs on that line-up. Just a few minutes confirmed to me that that wasn't going to do it for me, and so I stomped off! However...it only took me to get to Genosys to find the silver lining in the Blawan cloud - I saw almost all of the live Lance Desardi set and it was blistering. And, more importantly, oh my days, Genosys is back. I'd say the sound was at least as good if not better than before, and for that particular unanticipated live set it was nothing short of incredible. Visuals were as mind-melting as ever, and I was so, so happy to be back at my favourite Glastonbury stage. So, great first half of the game. I won't bore you with the details of the second half, other than to summarise that: (a) The Bimble Inn is a rubbish venue for dance music, not least of all as dancing on the north face of the Eiger is unpleasant and the sound is dreadful. (b) I can confirm that there was NO psytrance at all at Glastonbury 2024, as hopes of psytrance DJ Regan playing me 45mins at 0215h on the Thursday night were dashed when, following a Ghanaian Afro-rap artist in the Wishing Well, said Regan launched into some squelchy, scratchy funky house. My pal was so kind as he knew how much I'd been hoping for just a little bit of one of my favourite genres...but alas, no. No bother, as we'd had a fun night and that Genosys set was sooooo good.

 

Friday

I always see any good dance before the Friday as a real bonus, so I was already ahead of the curve. And, tonight was Dragonfly night, oh my goodness. After leaving a very fun Kate Nash set in Avalon (who knew she was that amazing a performer...?), I sprinted up to SH to try catch half an hour of Kelly Lee Owens, getting my only chance this year to see something on The Levels and leaving myself enough time to get to Arcadia before the big stages emptied out. YES!!! No. 

It seems that the Silver Hayes queuing of last year has now found its, ahem, level - f**king ridiculous. I was there by 2245 and it stretched from the entrance lower left side, waaaaaay back towards Lonely Hearts. Bonkers. Realising immediately that Ms Owens and I were not to enjoy one another's company tonight, I had a gentle wander and made my way to Arcadia. As ever, the mechanical monster had a significant tourist crust which, once passed through, opened up to plenty of space close to and under the Dragonfly. That was the good news. The bad news was that my early arrival meant I had to endure 15 mins of Norman. I really, really don't want to be dance music snobby, but Jeez, Louise - really?? Anyway, once he'd finished, loads of people buggered off and for the first half or more of Joy O's odd set, it was very spacious right under the belly of the beast. I tried a few different positions, quite keen to be able to see a bit more of the amazing structure if I could, only to find, predictably, that once again the sound is best right underneath. And not just best - STELLAR. Easily as good as the Spider at its best, when you are under the speakers attached to the body itself, and so triangulated to the meeting point of the sic outer, and four inner speaker arrays - bloody health, that it amazing sound. As said, I didn't get Joy O at all really, other than a few tracks (more a me thing...), but I do admire DJs with the variety and versatility he has, and he knows how to curate a setlist really well. And so to HAAi b2b KI/KI - if I had felt any anxiety about potentially over-recommending this set, my concerns were assuaged within about 90 seconds. I loved how you could tell who was on the decks by a clear, but rather lovely demarcation - HAAi hitting us with peak time techno weapons, interspersed with KI/KI building up trancey bangers. 65 minutes of pure joy, and I knew immediately at the end that no dance set was going to top that over the festival. They had no time to warm us up, so went hard from the start and it was utter joy. WOW. Amelie followed them with a great set, tempering her more recent style of too hard, too fast, too much reverb on the kick, to more 2019 Amelie - she still does like to break the tracks down to just kick, add hi-hat and build from there a little too often, but she knew how to keep the momentum going and was the perfect segue from the ladies before. Possibly my favourite ever time at Arcadia. I pulled my mate out 5mins before the end to try to get a jump on the Arcadia and SH crowds, so as to minimise delay to the SEC. Sadly, my other mate, who had been at the side of Arcadia, seems to be having an inordinate amount of trouble working out which Arcadia bar was the one opposite the head (to clarify, it's the bar opposite the head), and so once that cat was herded, all time advantage had evaporated! We went as quickly as possible to Bella's Field to find a huge crowd, held at the turnstiles into the SEC who had already been there for 20 mins. After a further 20 mins of the very nice stewards trying to paint a picture of the area being so full and emptying so little that we were never going to be let in...we were let in!

 

I had wondered about stopping into a bit of Azyr, but given the delay and slight anxiety about getting stuck out of Block9 if I went to Unfairground, we did a bit of Python (sounded pretty special on IICON), wandered past Midland on Genosys (just not for this raver, sorry), and ended up at Blind Tiger for 45mins of breakneck speed, breakbeat rave courtesy of Origin8/Propa b2b Hypershe. Bugger me, those guys play fast! But it was fun, and we shuffled off to bed at 5, with the glory of HAAi and KI/KI still ringing in our ears.

 

Saturday

Saturday night is camp rave night. Sadly, four of the very best ravers in our team chose not to come this year (WHAT?!), but the less frequent dancers did not let themselves, or the tradition, down.

After seeing Orbital play a fantastic hit-heavy set on Park (the sound on there now is just magnificent), we made our way casually to the SEC. Popped into Maceo's for a wee while and as it was starting to fill up in there (Maceo's, Saturday night is one of the biggest parties I've ever seen) we made our way to Genosys for OK Williams. Not great. For about FIFTEEN MINUTES!! She started with some slightly suspect bassline, but swiftly moved more into techno which, by half an hour in, was just phenomenal. Absolutely loved this set, and she seemed to enjoy it a lot - thanks for such a strong recommendation, Child 1.

Saw the end of Afrodeutsche and then into Stingray who, as many in the thread have attested, was off the scale good. I'm not sure I've ever heard a DJ sound better on IICON - every transition was into another absolute killer track, each time the crowd looking at one another with that "awwwww!" face of pure joy. But, a plan ain't worth anything unless you stick to it and so, as I had promised myself, I headed over to Genosys in time to see Madison Moore start. This had been the one set I had really targeted, again as another huge rec from Child 1, and also as I had never seen them play before. Oh dear. What is THIS?! They've only gone and done an OK Williams on me. Worry ye not, young ravers, within 15mins they had also found their stride, oh yes indeed. The combination of a killer set, my camp mates who don't really rave, there having the time of their lives, the impeccable sound and visuals of Genosys and the luxury (at Glastonbury) of that non-typical 2 hour set made it one of my favourite sets ever on the Farm. Incredible. I've seen Partok before. I've never enjoyed Partok as much as that. He was fantastic, immediately realising that what we wanted, what we needed was very much more of the same. That, at 4.30am, we just wanted him to smash us with propulsive techno. And did he ever. Without question the best set I've seen by him, and I don't think I've ever seen a bigger, more absolutely up for it crowd at Genosys at 6am. No gurning mass of shuffling zombies here - everyone was just so up for it. What a night!

 

Sunday

I spent some time in the day pondering my strategy. I knew I had to leave dancing at about 2.30am to go and get my coach, so I needed to be on the money in my plans. I settled on getting into the Temple for the beginning of Manni Dee's set at 10.30pm, rather than risk the queue getting too big that it impacted on my limited night. Good decision, Benjamin.

Joined the queue around 10.10pm and waltzed in about 5mins before Manni to hear the last bit of truly unpleasant tech-house from East End Dubs. I actually laughed out loud when, as Mr Dubs finished, the floor of the Temple more than half emptied. What is wrong with these people?😆. 

 

And so to Temple Techno Sunday. Manni Dee warmed up to some bone rattling stuff in the last hour of his set. Now, you know that I knew immediately that HAAi/KI/KI had no chance of being bettered. WRONG!! It wasn't by much but...

Location (when it all comes together, the Temple must be one of the best rave venues in the world, surely?), crowd, Sunday night and none of us want to go home, and then Daria Kolosova playing a faultless 90 mins of the most perfect techno for that time and place. Breathtaking. Chatting to Child 1, I know she can be seen as one of the 'successful, pretty female DJs'. All of that may well be true, but on that evidence, the first adjective has nothing to do with the second. She. Was. On. Fire. And, again, seemed to absolutely love playing the set. @Supernintendo Chalmers - I only wish we'd found each other there 😢.

 

My brain, by this point not necessarily at Krytpon Factor levels of functioning (one for the kids, there), was doing gymnastics, trying to work out the absolute minimum period needed to go from Temple to Oxlyers lock-up to PGA. Despite my earlier plan, I decided that an hour would be enough or, bugger it, I'd just run it. So, I stayed for the first half hour of Kettama who, after a rather predictable first two tracks, unleashed such brilliant techno until I ran out of there at 3am - he closed my festival as well as I could possibly have wished for.

 

OMG.

 

Was that my favourite ever Dance-Glastonbury? I never like to compare too much, as they're all so different and wonderful in their own ways. Was it spectacular? Holy moly, yes.

 

Massive love to @Madyaker for being the best dance buddy one could have - more fun than I can possibly describe ❤️. Was just amazing to meet and dance with @Talcroft - thanks for so much fun. And lovely to see @GrumpyRaver as always. To anyone else I saw who posts in our wonderful thread - thank you for coming to say hello. And thanks for making this such a fab place to share our experiences, as I, most likely, shuffle off to my customary post-festival hibernation. I'll be around a bit, I'm sure, and will likely put in a little report post-Shambala.

 

Let's do it all again next year, you beautiful people.

 

Benny
xx

Wonderful, beautifully poetic - and from the sets I saw too, stunningly accurate and insightful - stuff, as always.

 

And I promise, I will spend a full set with you next time we’re both on the farm! I really should have brought my group over at Genysys and iicon, but took the easy option of not trying to herd high cats… 😞

[nikkic]

Lovely review @bennyhana22

Now have a tear in my eye reminiscing that wonderful HAAI / Ki/Ki set.

Might be my favourite ever dance music hour at Glastonbury.

 

[LocalBen]

Hey Benny,

 

Great review, I shall be tuning in, for the build up to future Glasto's and hope to meet you again next year. 

 

I love that we'd independently found that spot, at that time, on Friday, under the dragon fly, yet did not know each other existed till Corinne Bailey Rae sang on Sat afternoon - Vicki and I bumped into you there for thhe first time 🙂.

 

Not much point trying to add to your review! Just... Yes, Orbital. Yes Genosys. I love that SE corner and have been having the best times there since the early 90's.

 

See you in 2025 💜

[Madyaker]

I found another tune that Stingray played, I like this one

 

 

Edited Saturday at 09:53 PM by Madyaker

[Frenger]

I was at Joy Orbison's set at Levels on the Thursday, and it was absolutely sublime.  I loved it so much.  Made up for not being able to get into Kelly Lee Owens on Friday (wounded not to see her - ginormous queue at Levels like Benny said (great review BTW mate) despite leaving fatboy half an hour early to get there). It was the first time i have seen him, having discovered during the run-up to the fest when doing the usual forensic checking out of the line-up. Incidentally one of my favourite things is how elements of the line-up year on year will become more or less relevant over time as my tastes evolve.  So i'm sure there will be things i listened to and decided to avoid this year, that in say 2027 will be right up my alley. 

 

What a festival.  Justice eclipsed their 2017 set for me, which takes some doing.  That and Joy Orbison were in a dead heat for most enjoyable electronic set of the weekend for me. 

 

Anyway - long shot, but would anyone have an inkling of where either the track ID list or sound-desk recording of Joy Orbison's Levels set could be found?  Or would it just be a case of keep an eye out and hope to get lucky on soundcloud or youtube? 

 

Ta!

 

 

 

[tigger123]

3 hours ago, Frenger said:

I was at Joy Orbison's set at Levels on the Thursday, and it was absolutely sublime.  I loved it so much.  Made up for not being able to get into Kelly Lee Owens on Friday (wounded not to see her - ginormous queue at Levels like Benny said (great review BTW mate) despite leaving fatboy half an hour early to get there). It was the first time i have seen him, having discovered during the run-up to the fest when doing the usual forensic checking out of the line-up. Incidentally one of my favourite things is how elements of the line-up year on year will become more or less relevant over time as my tastes evolve.  So i'm sure there will be things i listened to and decided to avoid this year, that in say 2027 will be right up my alley. 

 

What a festival.  Justice eclipsed their 2017 set for me, which takes some doing.  That and Joy Orbison were in a dead heat for most enjoyable electronic set of the weekend for me. 

 

Anyway - long shot, but would anyone have an inkling of where either the track ID list or sound-desk recording of Joy Orbison's Levels set could be found?  Or would it just be a case of keep an eye out and hope to get lucky on soundcloud or youtube? 

 

Ta!

 

 

 

Both unlikely I’m afraid 

[gfa]

Next year i'll meet you Benny - I promise!