Trowbridge Village Pump Festival

I spent a most delightful weekend with the loveliest people ever at the Trowbridge Village Pump Festival, and my head is even now still spinning from the goodness. You know when you do something you know has touched you deeply? It was like that, and made me feel happier about myself and who I am. mirabehn has written a very detailed and witty report of the weekend's antics here and evil_nick has many lovely photos online here. I took a few photos, entirely of us curling in a cute way around the campsite and singing and making music and these are now online here. I feel like adding my thoughts on special happenings that touched me in a significant way over the weekend - this is not intended to be a detailed review, for that I don't think I can compete with Elly's blow-by-blow account.

Firstly, and for me the highlight and discovery of the entire trip was how amazingly and totally talented many of my friends are. Forget the bands we actually went to see - the music that gave me the most joy was that the wonderful people I went with created. mirabehn has a singing voice that is impossible not to fall in love with, and I spent most of the weekend in anticipation of the next time Elly would sing. Especially good was when she was accompanied by libellum singing in harmony, to the sound of borusa on guitar, and smhwpf on recorder or tom toms, or various other combinations.( Photo of session )

Many many different songs were sung and played, often from the McCalman's song book (Smugglers and Loves the Rising Sun) and others from many different sources. I am so in awe, and am now somewhat very determined to learn how to play an instrument properly (other than the piano which I am competent at, but which isn't exactly portable...) and/or take up mirabehn's offer of training my singing voice. This is now something I really want to do, and do well. I've been feeling very inspired all week. I hope this feeling lasts. *bounce*

I've been to many festivals, and now I've noticed that how much I like a festival depends a lot on the prettiness of the site and its surroundings - I'm saying this because the Trowbridge festival site was one of the loveliest imaginable. The site was small, set around a river, with the main stage on one side, and the camping area on the other, and various other stages and bits and pieces on an island in the middle. Colourful lights decorated all the connecting bridges, so once it got dark the river-crossings appeared very magical and pretty - its was small touches like that which the organizers had made an effort to get right that made all the difference. I should also mention the festival portaloos, which very spectacularly got regularly cleaned, freshened and one could often find loo-roll, water and soap provided. Stunning, but most pleasant. A proper ancient castle loomed over the campsite, and on a distant hillside a white horse was visible carved in chalk onto the hill. And I for one was glad to be out in the country and able to see stars again at night - that always gets me excited and makes me happy. *smallsmile*

Being a small festival it felt more intimate and more friendly. In big festivals theres always lots of things going on at any given time, and I've always had the feeling that whatever I;m doing, I'm missing something else - the party is always "elsewhere" - none of this at Trowbridge - it was very relaxed, chilled and went at its own slow pace, which was perfect. No huge crowds to push through, and even near the stage, it was not too hard to get right up to the front if I wanted to (but often I didn't, but it was nice to know I could). Much easier to find people, too. Am all for small festivals like this. The age breakdown was what could be expected for a folk festival - mainly over 40s (yep, old men with beards), and many families with children. People our age very much in the minority, in fact. One curious observation, although I don't believe it was a deliberate attempt to "look the part". I noticed that the bearded look was catching on - I did remember to take and use my shaver, and I was the only male in our group without a beard. La.

The group chemistry felt amazingly right - I went with mirabehn, evil_nick, libellum, doseybat, borusa and smhwpf, and everyone got on wonderfully and in a lovely fun way, which given we had to spend 4 days together 24 hours a day was something of a blessing. A group of many wonderful differing interests and abilities and ages. By the end of that time I'd gotten to know all of the group somewhat better, and felt really close bond with them. Every night we stayed up sitting around the lantern (sadly, no camp fires allowed) drunkenly talking nonsense and anything and everything into the early hours (and on one occasion, even singing a drunken rendition of The band played Waltzing Matilda). And we all curled and flopped and plaited each others hair and gave each other massages and things. It was nice.

I'd been hoping to refresh my knowledge of dancing and maybe even learn a few new dances, but this is one part that defeated me. I find I don't learn well at workshops, plus dance workshops on offer there didn't particularly inspire me. In the past I have learnt all my dancing simply by expert tuition by a willing and patient partner, actually at Ceilidhs and dances themselves, and had been hoping that there would be some good dancers at the festival, despite in being orientated in the folk music direction, as opposed to dancing. Sadly, The dancing skill of the festival-goers can only be described as pathetic. Between called dances, when the band played a simple polka, the dancefloor emptied (aside from a few attempting simple ceilidh moves to the music). Me and doseybat were the only ones attempting to polka, for which afterwards we both got much appreciation from random people (especially as we'd done that polka wearing DM boots (makes it faster, you see)). I was frustrated - hearing all the wonderful music all weekend made me want to dance, and I wanted to dance with good dancers, and there were none to find. Am more than ever determined now to find a good dancing place in London. Want to go to more Ceilidhs like the one I will be going to on Friday, and make sure I get along to On Bouge again (sadly it seems their next Bal is not until September. Grrrr). Want to dance! *infuriated*

And of course...er...the bands....Not going into any details, but Oysterband, Show of Hands, Levellers and Eliza Carthy were all amazing and blew me away.

And Richard Thompson is God.