Words by Ursa Gregson
I arrived at Brockwell Park, Herne Hill, with nothing but a leatherette trenchcoat and the sun on my back, wraparound sunglasses and purple lippy on my withered face and forty cans of pink gin and tonic secreted in my various crevices. By the time I found myself in the eye of the storm at 1:30pm I had already dropped two Fexofenadine and a Cetirizene and my eyes were clear and dry as a glass partition in Arizona. My nasal passages were like two airy hallways in Spring. I was ready to bleed South London.
(Photography by Spela Cedilnik)
The Brixton Brewery stage spewed forth a helping of Platonica Erotica as soon as I had doffed my wraparounds to a few of the denizens mingling therein. Her set was a treasure, as always, drawing in and silencing the mulleted louts at an impressive rate for such a crack-of-dawn set, and the sweet, simple instrumentation made my G&Ts quiver in their holsters. Platonica Erotica's songwriting is an unadulterated pleasure. Lo, my heart! Hark, the cheers of a wooed borough.
(Photograph by Angelika Blamires)
As the herd around me reveled in the discovery that unrefrigerated cans of Red Stripe from the bar were a snap at only £5.95, we were privy to a set on the selfsame stage by drum-machineniks Highschool, the sonic equivalent of Gang of Four doing a bit of speed with Ride and looking rather good doing it. Power, glory, sallow cheeks and wraparound sunglasses. Home!
Six battered soy chicken lumps later, and only £10 lighter, I joined the queue for the toilets at the crown of the hill above the Windmill stage, aka the main stage. From this vantage point I had about a fucking hour to calmly observe my surroundings. The apparition of these wraparound sunglasses in the crowd - petals on a wet, black bough, to quote Ezra Koenig. I hailed my compatriots and shot the Golden Virginia breeze with some passing goblins as I waited for the duos of reprobate film photographers to do their good business in the cubicles. Yard Act were doing their bit down in the valley but I was somehow more distracted by a rousing rendition of 'The Sickbed of Cuchulainn' going on in the next queue along which pipped my spirits, spirits only further bolstered upon my departure from the dunny.
(Photography by Spela Cedilnik)
Down by the main stage the concentration of wraparound sunglasses intensified to a degree almost as dense and sweltering as a black hole as the faithful assembled for their prostration at the altar of the Fat White Family. As the group gained the stage and the war-whoops rang out, Lias Saoudi strode forth in what looked like the selfsame Spanx he'd been wearing all tour. The family were joined by Meatraffle's Zsa Zsa Sapien on trumpet and percussion in a turn that was scintillating in both performance and attire. Our trusty lens-botherer Spela was at the front line for what followed - new track Worms, stretched into a ten-minute exorcistic dirge that saw Saoudi delve about half a mile into the heaving crowd to debase himself on the lager-soaked earth at the feet of rabid punters. Saul Adamczewski, back on stage, was doing horrible things to a beer keg all the while and our sunglasses were in danger of vibrating clean off our faces. This show was a disgusting little triumph on a grand scale. Wet Hot Beef made a rare appearance, and by the time the third track was underway the soundsystem was fucked (for the rest of the night no less) but that's probably what we all wanted anyway. After Feet and a final convulsion of Bomb Disneyland the time came to fall to the ground and truly take stock of our chemical compositions in grim preparation for the rest of the night.
(Photography by Spela Cedilnik)
Shabaka Hutchings is a real juggernaut of a man. Culturally, physically, sonically - as The Comet Is Coming did their best to further obliterate the speakers, Danalogue and Beta Max shredding the system's innards like confetti, King Shabaka braced around his saxophone like an Afrofuturist herald of end times. There's nothing like a spiritual experience that renders one slightly deaf and concerned for the movements of one's bowel over the coming hours. No sound problems could detract from the onslaught. Alleluia.
(Photography by Spela Cedilnik)
My powers of perception, review, speech and motor skill were beginning to be impaired during Amyl & The Sniffers' set, but I was aware that the concentration of circle pits and really-annoying-but-go-with-it showers of piss and beer hammering down peaked here, as the muggy sun slicked the inside of my leatherette wonder and my final pink gin disappeared into the air - my gullet - down the front of punters' trousers. It's nice to see a few ribs cracked at a rock show. It's nice to see crowd-surfers being accosted and dragged to the back of the crowd only to watch them drift by once again like a dogged length of driftwood in wraparound sunglasses. It's nice to see so many Sniffers.
(Photograph by Spela Cedilnik)
At some point in the next ten years or thirty minutes we became vaguely conscious that this year's headliners, Primal Scream, had rolled onstage, replete with choir, Bobby Gillespie loping towards us like a louche spaniel in a white cocktail suit. Again, despite the absolute mockery that had been made of the soundsystem, the gargantuan drums punctured the oncoming evening in fine style, and everyone got the bloody classics that they'd been dying for - or not - as the band wiggled and thrusted through Screamadelica like they were buttering morning toast or skimming stones on a boiling lake of wraparound sunglasses. Dutifully the throng had a big go on each others shoulders in an endless cycle of broken backs, pinched bollocks and chafed thighs. Glory unto rock and roll! Glory unto other people's baggies! Glory unto Herne Hill and surrounding conurbation!
(Photograph by Angelika May)
As the scream faded primally into the devastated wasteland of the monitors' internal discourse we waddled along for far too long in the exit crowd, fagged, done, ruined, ready for afters, ready for ruin. After a long and bullshit journey to nowhere in particular and a lot of hedges a ragged gaggle of us ended up at the Windmill where we could well have ended up two hours previously if we hadn't been so full of shit in every sense of it. Karaoke? Ja. Guinness? Jawohl. Frontmen? Sehr viel. Wraparound sunnies? Ha ha ha. We were, and remain, Wide Awake. Thanks very much for making my day and ruining my week.
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