Glade 2009: Review Summary and Podcasts

I've been very slack on here lately, which is partly due to the fact I've either been in a field or house-sitting somewhere with crap internet. Anyhow, I'm long overdue a review of Glade in July, which music-wise has been by far the best festie of the summer for me. This is epic, so I will break it down into three digestible days. So here goes...

SUMMARY

This year was first on a new site for Glade, Matterly Bowl in Hampshire, recongisable by some for hosting Homelands. For many, this led to some pre-festie anxiety over teething problems and whether it would really capture that Glade vibe that’s kept us going for the last 4 years. On the other hand though, the line up was sick and the organizers had secured a much later licence, so the usually excitement soon built up for what, for many, has consistently been the most important date in UK dance music’s annual calendar!


Thankfully our mate Charlie scored us a wicked pitch by the hedge on the path down to the mainstage, so with the new layout it felt like we had the whole festival at our fingertips. This was helped as well by the fact that everything was much closer together, bound by the nexus of the awesome outdoor Arcadia stage (more of that later).


So how about the music? Well, the line up was awesome and with Function 1 and Opus systems in abundance the sound quality was first class. I was a bit worried about the bleed between the closer tents but generally this wasn’t a problem, especially once you got yourself in a sweet spot!


Atmosphere? Incredible, helped by the new site, again the addition of the Arcadia stage, a later licence, half decent weather and the fact that for one weekend a year you can party with all your mates to the best dance music around! Our weekend was slightly spoilt by some c*nt slicing the side of our mate’s tent open to nick his wallet and shitting in our neighbours gazebo on the first night, but this was the only incident in what was otherwise a lovely weekend. And Joe did get his empty wallet back in the end thanks to some kind soul.


The full review will be in the next three post-dated posts. Don’t forget you can still download wicked Glade podcasts by all the headliners, including Freeland, Underworld, Booka Shade and Squarepusher here:

Glade Festival Podcasts
Podcast address: http://www.voidfilm.net/glade/glade.xml

You can also still buy an exclusive Glade festival compilation and mix featuring a lot of the major tunes from the weekend for only £ 5.99! Have a listen and download from here:

http://www.trackitdown.net/genre/breaks/track/1056620.html

Track Listing:
01. Underworld – Glam Bucket
02. Tom Real - Bang The Box
03. James Monro presents Quiet Storm - Curve
04. Perfect Stranger - Free Cloud
05. Mutant Clan - Kenesai
06. NAPT - Gotta Have More Cowbell
07. Krafty Kuts & A Skills - Happiness
08. Deekline & Wizard - Bounce and Rebound
09. Rennie Pilgrem - Rich Rule Us
10. Drop The Lime - Hear Me
11. Plump DJs - Beat Myself Up
12. Beat Assassins - We Run Tings
13. Far Too Loud - Play It Loud (Broken Robot Mix)
14. Plaza De Funk - Drop The Bomb
15. Disco of Doom - The Click (Zombie F*ckers Mix)
16. Chromatone - Smarty Pads
17. Tristan - If Only
18. High Rankin - Escape From The Hood
19. Shitmat - DJ Got Virus
20. Sub Focus – Timewarp

Glade 2009 Review: Saturday

Saturday started off pretty wet. D-raa and I had a very lazy start to the day, spending most of it snuggled up in bed. We started the day proper with Far Too Loud in the Liquid tent, by far the beast breaks I heard all weekend. These guys are awesome. Chunky, funky and powerful, you just can’t help but shake it all out. 'Play it loud' has to be one of the iconic tunes of the festival.


After Far Too Loud we headed over to the Interstellar Circus on our way to the Glade Stage. A very welcome expansion of the cabaret, there were some incredible hula and aerial acts on throughout the weekend (props to Merlin, Loz, Chanti and Em!).


Reaching the Glade Stage we somehow managed to get almost everyone together for Squarepusher’s bass playing madness. I’ve seen him once before at Glasto with a really small crowd (incredible) and this was a perfect time to see him on a larger scale (Glade Stage pays off again). With a live drummer it turned out to be very rock for the fiorst half and more of the usual d'n'b electronica style for the second.


Squarepusher Live

From Squarepusher we charged over to Venetian Snares for some proper mental junglist breakcore. I’ve been trying to see him for ages (anyone remember last time at Glade?) and there really is no better way than straight after Squarepusher. Really.



By the time we were done having our head pulverized we ran up to see the Wobbly Squadron rock the Rabbit Hole. The wobblers were made for this venue full of colouful characters bumbling around, and their funky psychedelic rock wobble is the perfect antidote to having your ears put through an electric blender to be fed through your nose. Amazing upbeat party atmosphere and great tunes to dance around to… wobble on!




After the wobblers we staggered around to some of Flying Rhino’s psytrance on Arcadia, which by now seemed to have been discovered by more people. The party was in full swing, heaving with grooving bodies silhouetted by fire light and frozen in the shutter flashes of the strobes.



We’d already had our brains fried a fair bit though so retired to the ever beautiful sanctuary of Inspiralled’s LED light, glowing, flowing, smooth stretched shapes and shelters. We arrived to the bouncy sounds of Ed Solo and Skool of Thought’s ‘We Play the Music’ which soon mixed through to some lush dubstep. Another perfect moment. It could only be Liquid Djems, whose down-tempo breaks and dub sets are often the high points of my night (and the source of many new tunes!). I actually find out for sure until I saw him on Sunday morning but I was more with it by then anyway. We bimbled around chatting and met a doctor handing out flying saucers.


We’d agreed to met our mates Joe and Hannah in the Vapour tent for Juan Atkins and Adam Beyer. By this time, the idea of grooving around to techno in a half empty cavern seemed very dull next to the prospect of an Arcadian dawn, so we soon left and headed back to the junkyard to find the most banging minimal techno and electro house.

At this point I experienced the best balloon of my life (no kidding) to Disco of Doom’s remix of the Chemical Brothers ‘Do it Again’. Having downloaded this tune the week before, it wasn’t till I climbed up to join the grooving masses on the platform, and bumped into Djems, that he told me that it was in fact Disco of Doom playing, and that the madman leaning out of the tower and swinging his arms at us was Tom Real. Epic.


Once the set ended we hung around like lost sheep before heading back over to Inspiralled to see the morning in.