The few days before Lechlade Festival consisted of constant weather watching, last minute sign printing and email monitoring.
The Friday approached quickly, so piling signage and the coffee machine into the car I headed up to Lechlade to help site set up.
The main stage was in the process of completion and the Real Ale tent was set up complete with the biggest frying pans I’ve ever seen ready to cook for festival attendees. So after a few more tents and stalls set up, we all retired for the night ready for an early start Saturday morning.
No matter the amount of weather watching or finger crossing we had done, Saturday got off to a grey start. Arriving on the festival site we set up the VIP tent with snacks and beverages and arranged a large amount of beanbags and plants (kindly provided by Lechlade Garden Centre). In the end it looked like quite a nice area to collapse in.
The next tent to set up was the Arty Smarty Party. This marquee was full of arty-crafty bits and pieces to cut, tape and stick to your very own cowboy hat. In hindsight, I think it may have been more popular if the wind hadn’t decided to blow half the stall contents away.
Continuing on Saturday the first shifts were on the Box Office, then a final shift on the Arty stall. The day moved along fairly fast and with only the odd splash of rain, weather wasn’t too bad and we even got some sun in late afternoon. People made camp on the field with chairs and blankets to enjoy the Riverside Stage entertainment whilst others made themselves comfy in the Real Ale tent with entertainment on the Halfpenny Stage. The range of food went down a treat with a Hog Roast at 3pm and the traditional ciders a favorite amongst the festival goers.
I was lucky enough to finish my shift work in time to enjoy the last two headlining bands each day, so I adopted my ‘Photographer’ hat and went to town. It’s very rare to be able to get so close to any stage to photograph so this was great fun. Same Old Faces put on a great show with a tribute to the 60′s and 70′s, that were greatly received by the crowd and resulted in some very coordinated dancing (think Status Quo shoulders).
The range of bands at Lechlade Festival really showed itself on Saturday night with Same Old Faces being followed by Inkubus Sukkubus, a Goth Rock band with a fantastic stage presence. They took to the stage and blasted out their songs, I was particularly happy with how the photos turned out for Inkubus Sukkubus. It was a great way to wrap up day one of the Festival.
Sunday was spent mostly protecting the contents of the Arty Smarty tent from blowing away, but a good number of hats were created and paraded around the field. The placement of the Arty Smarty tent allowed me to hear and see the Main stage and field. All the bands really put a lot of effort into their sets, coming on stage with a real “Hello Wembley” attitude.
The field seemed more filled on Sunday and with some spare time on my hands I had a good look around the Stalls, it was great to see such a range of products for sale from jewelry to cupcakes to very strong lemonade!
With the stalls closing up for the evening, I paid a visit to the second stage to catch Frankenstein’s Lobster, a comedy ukulele band (one member of which formerly worked at Media Eden) who were just fantastic. They got people clapping, singing and dancing along and were so crowd-pleasing they played for an extra half hour.
After their set, I hopped back to the main stage to catch the last two acts of the Festival; Flipron were a quirky a psychedelic pop band from Glastonbury. They were great fun to watch and managed to get the festival organizers on their feet for a dance. Sunday night headliners Westbourne Circus, the London based super group, took to the stage for the final hour with a special appearances from Guy Pratt who has previously played bass with Pink Floyd and Matt Clifford who plays keyboards with the Rolling Stones. With the biggest crowd of the festival, I stayed put at the corner of the stage and snapped away. The set was of recognizable covers so the crowd was fully involved with singing along. It was a fantastic end to what had been a great festival.
Photos from the festival can be seen on the official site, my website and Jennie’s Flickr.
Tags: bands, blog, diary, Lechlade Festival, rhiannon
