Something the British middle class do well is organising free arts
festivals which gives them a sense of worth and belonging, or
something. For me, they are mainly places to drink cans in the sun
and watch some bands I'd never pay money to watch. The bands at these
things are usually an eclectic mix of what the organisers probably
think are cutting edge and as hip as possible without using swear
words, as you know, it's actually really all about the kids.
Crystal Palace festival has been going six years now and is one of
the better free festivals you'll find in London. It's a four day
event taking place in many pubs and spaces in Crystal Palace, Norwood
and Gipsy Hill. Loads of stuff happens over the four days; you get
what you expect from a liberal arts festival including comedy events,
salsa lessons, a spoken word night, food markets, jazz sessions and a
heap of other stuff but the highlight of the festivities is Saturdays
main festival site in Westow Park which is where it's possible to
drink cans without feeling like a tramp.
Westow Park is a small beautiful park in Norwood which is surrounded
by housing estates. I first came across this park whilst I was
carrying out the 80 mile Capital Ring walk, it is one of many small
parks in London which have been kept despite the ongoing development
of every area of the capital, It's always a lovely surprise when you
come across them as they seem a little out of place but are much
needed for the residents of the area for a place to chill out and as
an area to take the kids to play and get fresh air.
The festival site is divided into three main areas; the kids zone,
the food court and the main stage zone. There are three bars on the
site; one run by The White Hart pub serving real ale, one selling
cocktails and one selling mostly cider. The festival site starts at
11am and finishes at 6pm so there is only a limited amount of
drinking time so get there early and make the most of it. I arrived
at around 12.30pm as I thought I should listen (a little) to my
barbers advice that he imparted earlier that morning after he'd cut
my hair; "Don't drink too much at that festival thing."
Aye, right.
By the time I got to Westow Park the sun was beaming down on the
early revellers and though I tried (and managed) to hold myself back
from opening a can of beer my eyes kept wandering to the cider tent
which was set up by the main stage. I held off for around three and a
half minutes but the lure of taking part in the great British
tradition of drinking a cold cider in the hot sun whilst watching
bands in a field was too much to withstand. I may not have been in a
muddy field in Somerset having paid £200 for a ticket and surrounded
by smelly people with dreadlocks but this was the next best thing.
Actually it was probably better, I could go home to bed when I'd had
enough. I ordered a Black Dragon cider and one of the bar man asked
"who's drinking Black Dragon at this time?" he then
congratulated me on my choice, shook my hand and wished me luck for
the day. What the fuck did he mean?
The compere at these type of events are always the same; slightly
camp, extravagant, middle aged, middle class white males who think
they're the funniest people on the planet, or at least in their
particular suburb. I wondered what would happen if you collected all
the comperes of these arts festivals around Britain and put them all
in a room to talk to each other till there was only one man left
standing. I'd think that the room would implode in a fire ball of
pretentiousness, self-righteousness and wankiness. I needed another
drink so opened a can of Bombardier and poured it into the plastic
glass I'd got with the cider; though it is acceptable to drink cans
at places like this (and plenty of others were) it's nice to portray
yourself as having a sense of decorum so a glass is always a nice
touch.
If,
like me, you regularly attend free festivals in London you will have
noticed two guys who dress in the same clothes (including caps and
sunglasses) as each other and dance by the main stage to whatever
music is playing. They have choreographed dance moves and are a joy
to watch for a few minutes. It's great to see people who don't give a
shit what others think about them (as I'm sure most people will be
laughing at them) and are just having a bloody good time. That's what
festivals and the British summer should be about.
The
bands at these places are really an afterthought; it shouldn't matter
who's playing, it just matters that people have gone to the effort of
organising the event and that bands and artists have shown up to play
for free. But I'll give a brief run down of some the acts I saw.
Civil Love were a
rather crap nondescript indie band but they seemed to enjoy
themselves. Offbeat South
were pretty cool, rap pop type thing, a bit like N*E*R*D. For some
reason throughout the set the singer was wearing a rucksack; the can
drinkers transportation device of choice, so though it seemed a
little strange to me that he couldn't be bothered taking his bag off
his shoulders whilst singing I'll give him extra kudos for
representing the drinking class. Breezy Lee was
a nice, soulful singer somewhere between Amy Winehouse and Gwen
Stefani. The Hornets were
an instrumental funk horn led band who were pretty cool. Hallouminati
were a gypsy-esque sounding
band who weren't gypsies. They have a song called 'You Promised MeMoussaka' which I'm sure most people can relate to. The headliners
were Metamono who
were a Kraftwerk rip off. Strange choice for a headliner as the crowd
had nicely warmed up by that point and then just looked confused and
didn't know what to do with themselves.
The sun makes everything better in England and the music really didn't matter, Robin and I drank cans and lay about in the sun, ate a hog roast sandwich (other food available; jerk chicken, kebabs, Brazilian food, dim sum, posh burgers, posh fucking hot dogs (how did hot dogs get everywhere!? Absolutely, every, fucking, where. I saw an ice cream van selling them the other day. Ice cream vans should only sell ice cream and drugs.) and loads more) had an ice cream, drank some more cans. I even got offered the obligatory spliff whilst I was waiting for Robin. By the time I'd drank my eighth can I knew what the bar man in the cider tent had meant earlier in the day when he wished me luck. How the hell was I going to find my way back home? Standing up seemed too much of an effort at that point, I wanted to lie in that field forever.
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