Glade 2009 Review: Sunday

Sunday has always been my favourite day at Glade. It’s when the sun usually comes out as we bounce to reggae, sway to dubstep and groove to progressive trance, high on the accumulation of a weekend’s dancing.


This year wasn’t quite the scorcher it has been in the past, but the sun did make an appearance. After a snooze in the sun and breakfast, I rushed down to the Origin to see Perfect Stranger and Freq. Perfect Stranger was good but I found the set quite floaty without ever really getting into the groove. Likewise Freq was good but didn’t blow me away.



It was down to Ans and Allaby, whose techno set last year was a definite highlight, to really get me going. Their pounding, minimal and melodic 3 hour set certainly didn’t disappoint, with plenty of ass shaking and the traditional smiley Sunday vibes on the Origin. Like Peter Digital their deep techno sound worked really well with the rig.


After hours of dancing I went back to the tent, embarked on a tent art trail, cooked dinner and then spent ages looking at the epic cloud formations as the sun set. Although the weather wasn't perfect this year, it did stay dry every night and those clouds were amazing!


It was a bit strange getting used to the fact that the music still went on after 8 so we spent most of the evening bumbling between things. Avalon was keeping the party going with some proper forest trance down on the Origin stage. Drawn back to Arcadia we had an amazing dance to something I could only describe as baille funk electro crunk. She told me her name was Ghettozoid.



The final Arcadia set from DJ Syn was also epic. He dropped the phatest dubstep remix of Dizee Rascal’s (otherwise overplayed) Bonkers and ended on Far Too Loud with the sample ‘This is your soundsystem speaking, I am now in control’. Very fitting.



The last Inspiralled set was Merv from Eat Static playing some lush downtempo dub and breaks, it’s just a shame it had to be so quiet. The party kept going for a while in the tiny tiny Psy Forum tent which had about 500 people trying to cram into space for about 5, and at an ice cream van hosting an old skool jungle rave. It was fun for a while but I finally went to bed after realising that I want’t 15 any more and didn’t much want to be…


And so ended another epic Glade. Better than 2008? Hard to say, but it was easily as good and certainly passed all expectations. Here’s to next year’s evolution!