Beautiful Days Festival - August 2004
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What can I say... brilliant, excellent, fantastic what a great weekend! I worked on Saturday afternoon in the main arena and met some fantastic people who made my shift a fucking hoot!
A special mention is due to the Yorkshire lot Dean, (sorry I never found you a girlfriend!) Lee, (I always wanted a big brother and now I've got one) Kelly, (how the hell do you put up with them?) Jako on the Joy of Propaganda stall. Eve and Richard who were stewarding the beer tent, (thanks for the truffle on Sunday evening, it was lovely!) Scam from the teenagers tent. Stuart, Adam and Paddy, the Otter staff on stage 3. The mad bunch camped over the fence from us under the tree, can't remember any names, the couple of hours I spent with you lot was very surreal. Liquid acid in the fire, jacking up tents, mad taxi driver come security guard and that bloke that looks like Billy Connolly who is at loads of festies. Thanks Biff for putting on the festie and Jo for giving us work. Thanks to The Levellers who are the brainchild behind the event, who I didn’t get to see this year play but bumped into backstage.
I got to see some great acts; Misty In Roots, Neville Staple, Solabeat Alliance, Doozer, Ben and Lex, Hybrid. The highlight of these Beautiful Days was of course Dreadzone Sound System featuring MC Spee, a blinding four hour set on the Saturday night, Spee sweating, working the crowd up. There ain't no better MC, the guys brilliant at what he does with amazing stage presence. Greg and Ben behind the decks spinning the wickedest tunes and getting right into it. My favourite track? God they played so many but I loved hearing them play Zion Train's Follow Like Wolves. Not only did I get to dance all night to their tunes I finally got to say hello to them beforehand. I stayed on that dancefloor for the duration bar a quick toilet mission. Jan my mate couldn't quite keep the pace and had to leave (although I reckon the guy she'd met had something to do with it!
After chatting to a really nice guy I made my way back to the tent, I hadn't got very far and was fumbling around in my bag for my phone when who should come up behind me but the one and only Greg 'Dreadzone' Roberts! I walked down with him to the backstage area, I hope I told him the set was excellent, I can't remember, I know I told him I wished they played Ms Dynamite......yeh nice one Sam, meet a person who's music has lifted you, inspired you, got you through crazy times and you tell him after a blinding four hours that he should have played a certain track hahaha.
On the Sunday afternoon we bumped into the legend that is MC Spee, what a lovely lovely bloke, really welcoming, really really funny. He chatted to us for ages and took us in the bar when it started to rain and bought us all drinks. I worked again on the Sunday night and spent most of it inside stage 3, Spee did some more MCing over a few hours with Bitesize, Ben and Lex and Hybrid. I danced and danced and clocked off work and danced some more! We left on Monday morning buzzing, smiling, laughing, flying!
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I didn't take any photos but here are some of our group taken by my friend.
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