Saturday at Solfest was a mostly ( only a couple of torrential showers) dry but windy experience.... full marks to all involved in keeping this show on the road... but in the face of adversity and tbh making the best of a bad weather situation the festival site looked tired and very much past its best..
The 'decor' was suddenly looking old and faded - of course much blown apart and the indoor stages also felt like they had seen better more exciting moments... the problem is in bad weather these places become over crowded and consequently unpleasant... the big tent which last year hosted impromptu whatever acts wasnt here this year so a big space lacking and then the lagoon venue had been distroyed in the storm - so effectivly two indoor venues closed.... nobody is picnicing on the field - indoor space starts to at a premimun..
However the festival goers did themselves proud. Saturday is fancy dress night and the theme this year for the 20th anniversary was originally pirates and fairies but had eventually morphed into anything goes just the pick of the best. Which meant a fabulous array of amazing inventivness and lots of fairy lights.
There were crews of pirates and whatever you might call a collective of fairies... Jack Sparrow was evident everywhere as were flashing fairy wings... the rain mostly held off but the arena was a quagmire so most fairies were in wellies. There were spacemen, dinosaurs, alices in wonderlands, day of the deads, but there was only one parrot with a pirate on his shoulder- caused a lot of hilarity...
The winds continued but without the rain it wasnt quite so cold. We had put on as many clothes as we could fit under our costumes... Dr Fred was quite a chubby parrot and I was defo a rounded fairy... we went up for an afternoon stroll - although clumping would describe it better. We treated ourselves to festival food and ate it quick before it blew away. Goodness knows how fairies manage with wings in high winds I kept expecting mine to take off without me!!!
There was an air of resilience about... we will eat this pizza before it blows away we will stand in this mud and cheer the Amy Winehouse Band along...they were good. We went down the Hive.. Dr Freds favorite bit - it felt sad - 10 or so hardcore trancers dancing - its open air, normally an exhilarating, liberating factor but inches of mud and howling winds diminish that feeling quickly. We didnt stay long - in fact we didnt stay in the arena long. We waited to see if De La Soul might be a surprise by being appealing to us - they drew a big crowd but its not our thing so we headed back to the vansion to have our own party.
We cleared the dance floor 🤣 and plugged in the disxo light and had a little mud free, rain free disco.
Dr Fred went back to the Hive - divested of his parrot suit freeing up to add more layers including waterproofs - I dexided to be an old lady and got snuggy in bed with some tunes, glass of wine and crisps. The van stayed water tight and actually it wasxa very pkeasant experience after all that mud and wind.
FINALLY - for saturday at least - I have to say how very very fabulous it is to have a loo on board.... no tramping across field of vans and guy ropes in the mud.... maybe I do still love the van a little bit....
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