Hawkfest

[M Holmes]

gingoblin at EASYNET.CO.UK writes:

> A big thanks to all involved... what a great weekend. Arthur Brown was
> excellent on the Friday, and Hawkwind reached numerous moments of utter
> brilliance on the saturday! It's just never enough! Highlights were The
> Right Stuff... it just shot up in the stratosphere after the fairly ambient
> Chronoglide Skyway (which I don't remember even recognising! Hmm), Where
> Are They Now... a true joy to hear... and of course Assault &
> Battery/Golden Void. Great lightshow too...    Perhaps I would prefer less
> "guests"... it's HW I really wanna see.

No! NO! We need more Barton!

> Really cool atmosphere (everything else was HOT!)... lovely food -
> carnivores, it's only three days! Do you object to eating vegetables or
> something?!!

It's illegal for us Scots.

> Pity about the no fires, no barbecues, no candles thing... fires I can
> understand, disposable bbq's leaving loads of burnt bits on the grass I can
> pretty much understand

Come on. Stick 'em on the box they came in and they're off the grass.
Also, if it had gotten as cold as 2002 then we'd have at least needed a
couple of big communal fires to get warm. What's with all this yank
safety-nazi stuff? Can't we all just sign waivers saying that if we burn
ourselves then it's our own fault? Is there a lawyer in the house?

> but candles?

Yep, stupidity.

> Still, I s'pose that's the price that
> has be paid for having facilities like showers etc. Being able to cook
> would be very handy though (all my horrible, disgusting vegetables had to
> come home with me).

Can't you just plant them or something?

> And indeed the Big Bulb did infringe somewhat on the star-gazing
> activity... I'll start sticking together red sweety wrappers for next year
> too I think. Either that or start work now on the Big Lampshade. For the
> night-vision impaired no doubt it was a godsend though.

Apart from the astronomy thing (and I'll admit that my wont for spotting
Iridium flares and the space station makes me perhaps a little bit
special but then again, Mars is at its brightest for 60,000 years) I
hate people not considering the aesthetics of lighting at festivals.
Take Glasters: people go to a lot of effort to put up all sorts of nice
coloured lights and light displays to turn it into a big fairyland at
night and then they put those huge diesel powered white lamposts along
the Old Railway and ruin the whole effect. OK, we didn't have a huge
coloured light display, though I liked the mushrooms and they could have
been better positioned for effect, but a huge white light is still not
the right way to go. Red's pretty good for seeing at night and
maintaining night vision.

But OK, I'm being picky and I enjoyed the whole experience as much as
anyone. Everything really worked well and the rave tent would have been
fine if it'd been over by the river or somewhere else well away from the
stages.

> All in all, a really excellent time was had... I get to go to these type of
> things so rarely now with most of the free festies up here disappearing
> years ago. It did indeed recreate the atmosphere of festivals of old (as
> the aim was stated on the website)... a definite success. Here's to next
> year! Guaranteed we'll all be back! (cue collective groan from those camped
> near us that had to listen to the incessant pish we talked! Sorry!).

That was you?? I thought I was just thinking out loud.

> So thanks to the Hawks, everyone involved with the running of it, and
> everyone that turned up and had a great time. Roll on 2004...

Seconded.

FoFP