Sonic Rock 2005

Sonic Rock 2005

This year's Sonic Rock festival was held on a Lincolnshire farm on 10th September. No Hawkwind, but definitely some Friends & Relations: my most excellent buddy Rob Dreamworker was there, wrote this, took the photos and sent the whole lot to me for your benefit. Thanks Rob!:-)

Friday September 9th (First band on 16:30)
- Space Ritual
- Ego Prime
- Arthur Brown
- Litmus
- Dr Hasbeen

Last Friday night I picked up a fellow list member (Richard) on my way to Skegness. We arrived much later than we'd hoped after a painfully slow 6 hour drive - and missed everything bar the end of the Space Ritual set.

From what people said later Arthur Brown and his band turned in their usual high standard performance. Ego Prime were described variously as excellent or like a metal band with Harvey Bainbridge on keyboards and not getting the prominence he deserves. The Litmus set was apparently a blinder.

We picked up our wristbands (yellow cable ties actually) and drove into the camping field. It was cornfield stubble high enough to clean anything but the most stubborn stains off the bottom of the car. At times the car was almost floating on the bloody stuff. The field was essentially in the middle of nowhere and the only lights around were behind us. The headlights lit the way ahead, but you could see little or nothing to either side or behind. We drove into a blind alley of cars and tents with nowhere to park and a major effort to get back out again in the dark, so we abandoned the car and went for it.

The stage was in a marquee next to a pub (The Farm) outside a village north of Skegness. The bar was full of space-rock folk and playing excellent loud music (the landlords have excellent taste in music and just played CD’s over big speakers - I remember hearing Here & Now, Pink Fairies, Space Ritual). Next door was the disco area, the idea being that when the main acts finished everyone would pile in there for some dance music and for musicians to jam. Behind that was a cafe tent with indoor seating (useful later) serving great food at very reasonable prices. And opposite the bar was a marquee with a big stage and Space Ritual going for it full throttle.

I was just winding down from the drive and and getting into the spirit of the festival as Space Ritual were beginning to really warm up. Pete Pracownik joined the band onstage, but before he could play a note the PA fuses blew - Dave Anderson had spilled a glass of coke into something non-trivial.

Back to the field with a torch for some exploration (it was seriously dark there) and to move the car to a place we could camp. I've never put up a tent using only car headlights before (amazing that I've got away with it for so long), but it's harder than I had imagined. Quite pleased with the results, we headed back to the jam sessions, the bar and the early morning.

It had started raining not long after we had put up the tents. And it rained pretty much constantly for the next 48 hours.

I had a decent night's kip, breakfast in the cafe and bumped into some of the folks I'd been with the previous night - they were in the bar already…no, make that *still*.

Saturday September 10th (First band on 15:00)
- System 7
- Astralasia
- Here & Now
- Mister Quimby's Beard
- Earthling Society
- Bubbledubble

This place was nothing short of amazing. Apart from the camping field being a bit of a nightmare (including a car and a van already being stuck in the mud), the location was faultless. The main stage area was great, with loads of room for everyone. Everywhere, including the bar, was extremely relaxed and steeped in the atmosphere you would expect at a space-rock festival. The toilets in the pub were bearing up (and continued to do so throughout the weekend, despite the 50% reduction in seating capacity - I never tried the portable ones on the campsite). The whole scene was laid back and friendly, with band members sitting in the bar with everyone else. And the bar never closed. Everything we needed apart from our beds was inside the building and

there was plenty of dry space in the marquee, so nowhere was particularly overcrowded.

Something was happening in the marquee, though - the stage was being taken down. The electrics had been fixed during the night, but the incessant rain and the position of the gaps in the top of the marquee meant they couldn't keep the stage dry, so they decided to move it all out. I have to say that the organisers and crew did a fantastic job of reorganising things so that we didn't miss anything. (Main stage to the disco room, disco to one part of the bar, marquee into a chillout zone).

I got my head down for another few hours, heading back to the pub sometime just after 4 and caught the end of the Dr Hasbeen set. I've been keen to see them for a

while now and wasn't disappointed. [NB According to http://www.sonicrock.com the Hasbeen’s were supposed to have played on the Friday; in fact they preceded Bubbledubble on the Saturday, instead]

Earthling Society featured surprise replacement for their recently departed (at 5am) keyboard player: - Harvey Bainbridge. What I heard of their set was very good.

Mister Quimby's Beard were nothing short of stunning. I haven't seen them since the first Hawkfest when I thought they were OK, but Saturday night's show was orders of magnitude better.

Here & Now totally rocked, but I always enjoy their gigs. [Right: Steve Cassidy of Here & Now]

I nipped to the bar for a drink and ended up missing Astralasia totally.

System Seven kicked off with Nik Turner on sax, but he sat down at the end of the first number and

wandered off part way through the second. I don't know if he came back because I wandered off myself.

By about 2am there were quite a few tents that had not weathered the wind and rain, and I went to sleep worrying about how we'd get the car out. The field had deteriorated quite badly, despite some straw having been laid down near the entrance to the field and there were more stuck vehicles.

A car struggling along the "road" between the tents and onto the higher, drier and so far untouched part of the field behind our tents woke me up. I saw it turn at the far corner of the field and come back down along the adjacent field to join the farm track that led to the road. The guy next door echoed my sentiments when he commented that this new way out would soon suffer the same fate as the way we'd come in, so I woke Richard and we started taking our tents down. We were lucky to get out when we did because the bottleneck at the top of the field was heavily rutted (across the direction of travel) and already starting to get chewed up. We got stuck only 1m from the track - now I know why traction control can be a good thing.

Driving into Skegness we were pulled over for a routine tax disk check - the timing and location so close to the festival made us wonder. My family saloon wouldn't normally stand out, but the light brown mud all over the sides of it totally spoiled the camouflage !

All in all that was an excellent festival that was well worth the 12 hour round trip and the £30 ticket. Nice one, Colin and Dave.

Cheers. Rob

And now for all the photos that I didn't fit into the narrative...once again, Rob Dreamworker took these

Above: Space Ritual Right: Friday night jam session inside the bar area. Below: Joie, with Here & Now

Right: Steve Hillage! With a guitar in his hands!! But sadly no beard and flowing locks... Below: Nik Turner, guesting with System 7

Right: Keith Le Missile Bass of Here & Now.

Above: Miquette Giraudy -dunno if I've *ever* seen a photo of her before...

Right: Steffy Sharpstrings of Here & Now

Below: John "The Ghost" Greves of Space Ritual infamy, oh all right then, fame...