Electric Gardens Festival

4th & 5th August 2007
The inclusion of The Young Knives was, perhaps, a great tactical move by the organizers of Electric Gardens Festival. The band's "Hot Summer"summarized this boutique festival,now on its second year, on Kent's Mount Ephraim Gardens perfectly.The glorious weather at the weekend, lots of sunshine, no drop of rain which made the festival feel like a day out up in the mountains. The bands were carefully selected to cater different people's different music needs. A great plus was, the acts were not clashing with each other. An advantage of it being a small festival or just clever thinking on the organizers' part, while a band was playing on the main stage, the DJs were spinning the records on the second stage and vice versa so there was no hesitation on who you would want to see. The fact that it takes you about 5 minutes to walk in between stages was a welcomed change, especially after Glastonbury. So when things are running this smoothly you don't realize you are in a festival so there had to be something going on and that would be the queues to enter the festival site but then again once you are in there's nothing whinge about.

As said it was eclectic music-wise. You had establish bands such as the Happy Mondays alongside the upcoming french trio The Teenagers. While Calvin Harris was getting the main stage ready for the headliners on Saturday, New Young Pony Club were licking Ice-Cream on the 2nd Stage. The now obligatory festival stage - Myspace stage was offering a selection of unsigned talent alongside several Londoners GoodBooks and Scroobius Pip. The dance tent on the other hand was packed all weekend long with handpicked DJs like Statnton Warriors and Justin Robertson delivering the tunes.
One of the more energetic performances came from the Noisettes what with singer Shingai seemingly suffering from hyperactivity, she wouldn't stop jumping off drum kits and speakers. Maccabees on the other hand were just cool and pulled a great crowd. You got to love a band who demands smoke machines to be turned off. The eccentricism was delivered by Frederick of Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man and Foals were on stage to deliver the future indie floor fillers. The Pipettes got everyone up on their feet. There were plenty of pointing going on during their set. In the 2nd Stage area, there was complete silence for Laura Marling. To my ears she and her guitar were not too memorable but she definitely has a following, at the end of the day there's always a market for acoustic guitar/poet types. While she was being quiet and self-restrained, Patrick Wolf did not mind getting friendly with his audience. Even the security decided to leave him be, after the 3rd time he dived into the crowd. There were smiles all around and no tears. One can say Kate Nash was very good, her album released the following week is number 1 in the charts. She was definitely happy Saturday's headliner Supergrass filled the field and treated the audience to some new songs as well as back-catalogue of singles such as Pumping On The Stereo, St Petersburgh and Mary.

The afterthought? You get to watch some great bands and get a tan and do it for half the money of most festival, get those early bird tickets for next year's Electric Gardens.

For information about the festival, check out the Electric Gardens website
For pictures of the bands, check out YouNeedToSeeThese