News / / 13.06.14

Somerley Tea Party

Somerley Estate, Hampshire | 31 May

Like another fresh mole hole popping up out of the green grass of 2014, a brand new dance festival attempts to walk the tightrope between ‘Bang’ and ‘Buck’, located a short while from Bournemouth and Southampton. 

With tickets going from £20-40, it’s seriously reasonable; no more than the price of a decent-sized night out; about as much as you might spend failing to break into Global Gathering. Oneman, Paul Woolford, Simian Mobile Disco, Bicep and Eats Everything are disproportionately big names – and the organisers have kindly not over-ticketed – and the woodland of the New Forest and the gardens of the mansion are lovely looking, too.

As with any newly-spawning festival, there are teething issues, many caused by the location. A few people are left with creased brows and creased paper coach tickets as an uninformed driver of a full bus zips away from a difficult situation in the centre of Southampton. A few more faces contort similarly within some kind of HQ as a Scooby Doo chase ensues following the request of some set times. Apparently, there’s probably no written line-up of set times except on Facebook which you can easily check-up on your smartphones … but when your phone is only just above a Homer Simpson level of smartness, that’s not much help.

But everyone is pretty carefree about it. The forest of the Dog’s Kennel stage hosted a string of high quality young talent during the day such as local favourites Zoo Look, and all three  stages offer a different aspect of the overall musical policy: to oversimplify, the Dog’s Kennel stage is the more house-y one, the inflatable dome is the more D&B-y one and then there’s the main stage – a nice and clear system for the de-sobering brains.

In terms of performances, Oneman asserts himself on the crowd, pricking ears with Nina Simone and other familiarities only to diffuse in his personal take on hip-hop and grime. This is one milestone of the festival. Simian Mobile Disco are a stand-out performance despite only one half making it on stage. On his lonesome, Jas Shaw gives an impression of the ridiculous level of modular synthesis mastery that Simian are currently working as they set off to indulge in their new stripped down Whorl project around the world. Ten Walls pops up behind impressive flickering visuals of a running man and a flapping bird (not dissimilar to those very first moving images ever made that studied the concept of motion) for one of his first ever appearances in the UK. The beats are good, the atmosphere is good – but suddenly the record shudders – the sound of dread stating that we must leave because coaches would be leaving in 15 minutes.

We then headed home, waving goodbye to a handful of unlucky ones again and waving goodbye to a festival with some understandable teething problems. But it’s gonna make it to next year – probably – and in the current landscape, that’s surely the greatest achievement you could ask for. A success for what could be described as a thoroughly enjoyable textbook first-go festival.

– – – – – – – – – –

somerleyteaparty.co.uk

Words: Henry Johns

Photography: Christan Lawson

CONNECT TO CRACK