Solfest 2007

Yay! The weather held out so we camped for only the second time this year. We arrived on Friday afternoon and already the main campsite had overflowed to the opposite side of the road; but the Solfest area isn't very big anyway so it wasn't much further away.

I like Solfest. As last year, there was a fancy dress theme on Saturday night, but this time it was freeform, so there were lots of wacky outfits. Mine was almost identical to last year, apart from this year I wore a lime-green silk dress that I picked up for £4 from a TK Maxx. Somewhere in this house are the glowsticks I bought last year but could I find them?!

This year, B went as a Mexican, and there were quite a few others. Like a numpty, I completely forgot to take any pictures of our own costumes...!

For me, the food at a festival is almost more important than the music! And having been disappointed at Wickerman that there was no Burrito stall, it was the first place we looked for when arriving at Solfest. Yes! The Mexican Food stall was there as last year, worth the queue for the bulging Buffalo Burrito.... yum. the Stoat's Porridge stall was there again too - but we were disappointed to find it closed on Saturday morning - but we were soon comforted by turning round to find the Mexican place open already. Breakfast Burritos - woohoo!

So the stalls as always were also worth a good trawl - seemed like after a while they all started to merge into one large Indian bazaar. The workshops, the peoplewatching, the friendliness, the comfortable atmosphere.. and this year one of the main attractions was the alcohol rub in the toilets! Why has no-one thought of that before?! Brilliant!

So the music we saw was: Bens Brother, Moss Troopers (rehearsing and the real thing), Neck, Chumbawumba, Alison Dewar, Badly Drawn Boy, The Undertones, Lucy & the Caterpillar, Gaurav Mazunder, Thea Gilmore, Louise Mary Martin, KTB, Bex Marshall. Phew... Quite a lot actually!

Bens Brother were good, they are the next tip to be famous...perhaps a bit James Blunty though. Moss Troopers were great, numbered about 15 traditional musicians - would see them again. Can't remember much about Neck, Chumba, Alison Dewar. I think I might have been asleep. Badly Drawn Boy suffered from muffly sound from the main stage - in fact, most of the acts there did. The Bar Stage opposite was in constant competition - I think they should try and stagger it better. The Undertones had the crowd bouncing!

Lucy & the Caterpillar was bloody wonderful (dispite the poor sound quality). I would certainly go out of my way see her again - she was an acoustic guitarist with a voice similar to Joanna Newsome / slightly Bjorkish. One to watch!

Gaurav was a real-life sitar player and I've not witnessed one in the flesh before, he was good and drew quite a crowd, but to be honest we got a bit bored (too sober). It did make me wonder though how Indian classical music was acceptable but no European stuff... hmmm somehow can't imagine that at Solfest though.

Enjoyed Thea Gilmore. Louise Mary Martin was wonderful - did a great version of a Bjork song, Joga, which was nice! (Really looking forward to seeing Bjork perform in the flesh next weekend now!)

KTB was good, another acoustic girl singer - I could easily get mixed up! this girl is part of "Little Sister" who had been on earlier but we'd missed. She taught the crowd a simple song and organised a short round.

Bex Marshall was powerful - more rock chick twanging attitude than the tinkly picking which went before. Her voice sounded a bit too Bonnie Tyler for me but B liked her. She pulled off quite a successful "Purple Haze" including the fancy fingerwork. It's on her myspace page.

So that was it!

Photos now on Flickr