Music: GuilFest 2008

Went to GuilFest 2008 for the first time yesterday (Saturday)   We had hoped to go by train, but the last train back was at 11pm (and the station was around 30 mins away) so didn’t work out and we had to drive.   The weather forecast was bright but with sudden downpours and as there was a monsoon style shower around 8am on the day, we decided to go prepared for rain and shine !

The car journey there was relatively easy and the queues to get wrist bands were negligible (in contrast to the Reading experiences)  so were in the site by around 2pm. 

 We had a walk about and soon found the site to be reasonably sized with lots going on.  GuilFest seems aimed more at families and definitely has a more laid back feel.  Apart from the main stage, there was a mini version up the hill, plus four tents for bands (various sizes)     Even the toilets seemed more civilized, although by mid-afternoon there were perpetual long queues for the ladies!

After our trawl around the site, we settled down at the main stage for a rest in the lovely hot sunshine and to watch “Little Man Tate” who were quite good, “Hoodoo Gurus” who were a bit better, then we saw 3 songs of “Wills and the Willing” before I got fed up with them and we went off to find something more interesting to watch.

We ended up watching “South Parade” in one of the tents who were young but were pretty good.  The only thing I didn’t like was that they did a cover but perhaps they didn’t were too new to have enough songs to do a whole set !   We also caught a couple of tracks from “Nylon Sky” who seemed to think they were Limp Bizkit (particularly as they covered one of their tracks) but weren’t all that great.

After eating our squashed sandwiches we made our way back to the Main Stage for the two groups I was particularly looking forward to seeing

Kula Shaker came on at 7:50pm and did a great set of all the popular tracks, plus a few new ones.    The were great and sounded really good… with Crispian Mills putting on a good show, make me pleased I already got their previous albums as I want to listen to them again!   Will probably get their new one as well !     When they went off I was quite surprised, but looking at the time, they really had played an hour already….

There was a bit of a break until headliners Blondie came on, but were well worth the wait.     They played for over their allotted 85 minutes… more like 100 minutes.   They played most (or all) of “Parallel Lines” (which is now released) and Debbie Harry was wonderful and got the crowd going with her interaction and bouncing around the stage.    When you think of Blondie, you tend to think of Debbie Harry’s singing, but the band were really on good form in the show as well.   Overall, an oldie but definitely a goldie !  (probably buy the album as well)

GuildFest itself was well organised, lots of things to do and see and was worth going to see for sure.  The only slight irritation was getting out the car park at the end, but not enough of a problem to stop me wanting to go again sometime.