Paul Willoughby, Creative Director
Best Bits:
Hot cider, full of delicious and quite unidentifiable sediment.
The ‘Mothership’ pie deal, a massive head-fuck of a meal.
The atmosphere at the start of Sounds Like Teen Spirit.
Worst Bits:
Blood-curdling squawking from the resident Macaws at 6am.
Vegans.
Power-cuts.
People using our film tent as a nappy changing facility.
Andrea Kurland, Contributing Editor
Personal highlights would have to be Robin Pecknold’s soaring solos; the Broken Family Band’s self-effacing banter; and the chemical-free trip that is The Fall.
A low point came in the form of Alela Diane’s bass player who woke up on Saturday morning and, deciding it was a high-waisted spandex kind of a day, got himself all Brokeback-ed up to come on stage and thrust his groin around way too much, for far too long. There were kids around. It was awkward.
Best Bits:
Every second of Fleet Foxes.
Worst Bits:
Warm Cider.
Lack of humous.
Ginger pizza girl.
Dean Faulkner, Advertising Manager
Agree with Andy’s worst bits – why would you serve a drink that essentially becomes tepid cider after five minutes, and I reckon that ginger thing serving pizza must have done too many balloons… her voice was a more irritating sound than the peacocks screeching at 5am… “Pizza for tooooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”
Onto the best bits….
Has to be Broken Family Band – as funny as they were musically talented, and also gave the film tent a shout out which was massively appreciated. Gutted that they’re going their separate ways!
Fleet Foxes were also pretty special, especially after a treacherous hike through the woods to get back stage. Haunting stuff.
Overall, thought the film tent was probably the best looking element of the whole festival, maybe just pipped by the Garden Stage… only just.
Adam Woodward, Editorial Intern
Best Bits:
Peter Broderick.
Warm cider.
Ginger pizza girl.
Steve Jamison, Producer, Archer’s Mark
The Good:
The system on the main stage was awesome – Fleet Foxes and Alela Diane both sounded incredible but for me it probably peaked when The Leisure Society rolled out a cover of The Beatles’ ‘Something’. Though I did have the sun on my back and a warm, gritty cider in hand so my memory may be somewhat tinted…
The Bad:
No hog roast… I mean, pig and cider were meant for each other!
The Ugly:
Sunday traffic on the M4 into London.
Victoria Talbot, Designer
My standout moments are any of the below:
Playing a part in a real-life Christmas fairytale – wandering through a fairy-light bedecked enchanted forest with the smell of spiced cider heavy in the air – without the hassle of rubbish December weather.
Lounging in a sunny teepee, taking in the haunting musical stylings of Peter Broderick.
Defying expectations and physics by demolishing the aforementioned and extremely tasty ‘Mothership’.
And a special mention for the presence of the kitsch-tastic ‘Tea Stop’ bus. Top marks for the brownies and Earl Grey.
Other than the power outages I can’t honestly put my finger on a low point to report, though I doubt I’ll be able to even look at a pint of cider – organic or otherwise – for a good few weeks…
Matt Bochenski, Editor
The high point for me was probably before the festival began – stepping back to admire the finished tent for the first time after hours of stressful construction. Once we got rolling, definitely the start of Sounds Like Teen Spirit (boom!), and also the little girl at the Pixar vote. Outside of the tent, organic pizza was amazing and I thought the ginger girl was just being friendly. But the absolute highlight came during the threesome scene in Unmade Beds, screening in the middle of the day, when a little boy turned to his dad and asked, ‘Daddy, why are those two boys lying down together?’ He was soon whisked from the tent.
The lows: definitely the power cuts. The first one was bad, the second was worse, by the seventh we were seriously considering packing it all in. Also, I’d managed to expunge the memory of how frikkin cold it is at night. A rude (literal) awakening followed.
Adam Lee Davies, Ex-Rent Heller
Two of the highlights for me were skinny Yorkshire supply teacher David Thomas Broughton shambling onto the Garden Stage with nought but a grundy looking acoustic guitar and going on to build a monumental noise that sounded like a burning cathedral full of Catalan doves. That and the fact that the charming little library the organisers had squirreled away in the woods featured a complete 12 volume bound set of ‘War Machine’ magazine.
But the pinnacle of the whole weekend has to have been seeing Stephen J Toblowsky’s forgotten ’80s wonder of self-reflexive wit and dark idiocy, Two Idiots In Hollywood, finally reach the audience it deserves (12 people; eight of whom were a-kip). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – if it was Polish and in black and white, the BFI would be all over that muthah.
