I’m resting on a grassy knoll at the Secret Garden Party, eating strawberries and whipped cream – Champagne in hand – waiting for a live execution by guillotine. The beheading will take place at 3pm sharp (terrible pun) carried out by a fellow dressed as a large fluffy bunny rabbit.
A hush falls over the crowd. The blade drops. The ladies gasp. I lose a few expensive berries. The head falls below into a wooden crate. Silence.
But wait! Something’s slowly moving. We see an eye open. Ta-da! He’s come back to life the crazy rabbit!
Just a bit of magic folks…
It’s Saturday mid-afternoon and there’s a Mediterranean sun in Cambridgeshire, England. 17,000 festival goers, from toddlers to pensioners (mostly unusually attractive 18 to 25 year olds) are taking in the entertainments.
Having survived the audio tour of the Colosseum in Rome last month, listening to historical accounts of Titus opening the grand arena with 100 days of games (and the killing of a mere 9,000 live animals) – I can’t help but feel relieved that a good deal of our modern blood lust can now be satisfied by PG rated activities like ‘dance-offs’, mud-pit wrestling in fat-suits, heavy metal karaoke and long-haired-dudes attempting to stand for the duration of a water slide.
So the appeal is that – and the music. Whether it was the pitch-perfect Sarah Blasco mesmerising peeps by the main stage, I Blame Coco with her band of merry trendies and catchy new-wave pop anthems; Gorilla Sound System raising arms and spirits; deep house and dirty electro in the big tents; indie kids riffing away, or ska heads, Rude Boy and Rascal bringing down the house at the bunting-lined ‘town hall’. At The Secret Garden Party, you don’t need to ask… You shall receive.
My experience of the festival was one of continual bright-eyed wandering and stopping. Wander to the live Lewis Carroll tea party, stop for a spot of food. Wander to the bar for a peachy tipple, stop to photograph an art installation of paper origami penguins. Wander into the smoke-machine & laser tent, stop for a bit of music and boogieing. Take a seat in the middle of an author’s lecture; rest against an industrial size Moroccan pillow; dip into a life drawing class; get your hair and make-up done like a 1940s starlet; enjoy a Pimm’s on the lawn; listen to the banjos; take shade under the trees; chill with a book in your tent; engage in any number of live, competitive – and generally no more dangerous than slap-stick comedy – events.
Once vegetarian, since converted to die-hard carnivore – the food selection was almost exclusively organic, which I imagine is to be expected in a wholly non-corporate environment. There’s any number of vegan food stalls offering the usual and often frightening assemblage of shredded cabbage, tahini, Moroccan tagine, oat cake crepes. The saving grace: pulled pork in a roll with apple sauce and greasy! shimmering! terrifically bad for me crackling!
The best bit of the festival: the undeniably fantastical element of the place itself – especially at the dawn of each evening. These storybook estate grounds boast the topographical ornaments of a never-never land: a large centrepiece pond surrounded by garden walkways, decorative hills; under-lit trees of candy green, anonymous whites and electric blue.
Cross the wobbly bridge and in the distance you see a manicured pathway that one fairly assumes leads to the main estate house.
I like to imagine the owner of this exquisite property, an eccentric nobleman weaving through the festival. The older gent ditches his tweeds and Churchill brogues, donning the disguise of an aging hippy: bearded, dread-locked; in an almost dream-world he is dancing like a wild, carefree teenager.
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