Ok, so to not bury the lead journo-style: main thing is ArcTanGent was great and I can indeed still hack a 3 day Camping festival. This is my first since Life 2014, I have broken both legs and swore off them since then, but when I saw the lineup for this I knew I had to make the effort to get over. So I did.
First thing I'll say that as festivals go, I thought it was fantastically well done. The production, curation, provision of site services and essentials, cleanslyness and usefulness of the bathroom facilties, the pre pitched tent I sprung for, and just the general vibe and atmosphere were all great. I was impressed with the dedication to being enviromentally conscious, it was weird buying tinned water (particularly since the design on the stuff at the bar was very Repo Man esque) but it was good that the place wasn't covered in plastic.
Also for a Metal festival, generally lefty AF, aside apparently a few boneheads who turned up for Heilung who I personally didn't see but heard about from a few people. Hielung themselves are conscsious by the nature of what they do inevitably attract a bit of that sort of thing but have distanced themselves from it publicly to the extent that they can. Other than that, I saw plenty of antifa patches on peoples stuff, lots of leftist, feminist, queer and trans artists and just people about the place in general.
Pure family vibe too. Like there wasn't a play pen or stuff specifically for kids, but there was a good few babies and actual childer knocking about. Not many but enough that it all felt wierdly wholesome. I saw some folk with their kids (always with ear protectors) up on their shoulders at the main stage. Parenting goals tbf.
I found the way they ran the thing interesting. Everything started really early, first bands on 11ish, and everything runs up to 11pm, after which there is a "Silent Disco" where everyone who wants to can go to a stage and listen to DJ sets being played through headphones. Presumably this is to get around local sound rules and regs that dogged Boomtown the last couple of years I was there. Not the worst way to placate the NIMBYs if that's what you need to do, beats turning the sound down on the main stages after 11pm.
The stages were all pretty close together, had they all been on full time they'd have noise polluted each other out, but with this being basically all bands and stuff that required a set up they staggered the set times so at any given time one stage was on they'd be prepping for the next act on the other stage. I'm guess that's probably relatively normal for that type of festival but I'd personally not seen it before so yeah. Cool. Also made it easy to have a wee snoop about the different stages if you'd a mind to.
What I got up to: Thursday, flight got delayed getting from Belfast to Bristol and the coach into town took a bit longer than I had thought from the (admittedly somewhat rushed) research I had done into the transpot situ so I ended up getting charged dear for some of the camping equiptment I had to get from the last camp shop open in Brizzle by the time I got there (which means I need to do a few more of these things to get the use out of them, oh well....) and I didn't get to do some of the shopping I had planned which meant I had to rely on the then unknown quantity of making do with whatever I could get onsite. It also meant that by the time I got up to the site and got my shit together I had missed practically everything on the first day. No Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs for me unfortunately. If I'm back I reckon I'll need to look into arranging things a bit better with that in mind. It wasn't a complete washout, I did get to see a good bit of Converge who were headlining the mainstage and most of my first big discovery of the weekend Straight Girl who had played the wednesday and was covering for someone who had pulled out, apparently due to getting stuck on the UK border. I had literally just nipped out of Converge to have a quick snoop at the other stages to see what they were like, not intending to really be away for too long when I heard bass, breaks and beats coming from up the hill. Unreal, and short, enough that I caught the latter half of Converge. After that I was wrecked after all the running around so I booked and got my head down.
Friday I had a pleasant morning catching up with the neighbors (a girl from here and her mate from down South, nice!). Made frieds with a bunch of sound lads from Cardiff, who I'll refer to as 'Jeff's Mates'. I got to see most or all of Joliette, Ashenspire and CLT DRP and really liked them. I saw And So I Watch You From Afar, actually for the first time live, now feel like a bit of a nob for not having done so before. I saw Pet Brick again who I'd had the absolute best time watching at Bangface and gave it absolute stacks, probably the most lively I was all weekend. I didn't get drawn into the mosh pit but I was sorely tempted. Big highlights from the friday tho, not unexpectedly as they were along with Igorrr the big draws for me of the whole thing; Swans and Hielung. Swans was just darkness,vibe and intensity. I got complete full-body frission. It was great. Hielung was just on another level. For those that don't know, they basically do a sort of reimagining of Norse/German pagan shamanic rituals using costumes, instruments etc based on the type of things they have in the historical record or found in Iron Age burial sites from Northern Europe and a good bit beyond (but that's not important and they're not going for full dilligent authenticity). The stage craft is really elaborate too. Off all the stuff I saw, they'd be the only thing that if someone put them on in the Waterfront or something I'd take my parents to see them.
That was the day of the really horrible weather (in the middle of f'ing August, this is what global warming is for the UK btw) and it blew me right into my tent past any feeling towards sociability on my part. And I was just knackered tbh.
Saturday, having actually just had a really good rest I was intent on making the best of the last day. I caught A Burial At Sea, mathrock group Land Wars (Davitt / Parnell reference? one of the guys is from Cavan so maybe). After that I caught some nice queer, gothy-gazey act called Cultdreams and bumped into my mate Big Mike at the end. He took me to see Gggolddd, cracking dark, moody synth/trip-hop. We split and I had saw Grub Nap for a bit of a change of pace, 2 lads from Leeds doing aggy Sludge-core. Great stuff. Simmilarly the Callous Daoboys were a lot of fun and really heavy, Rolo Tomasi, Health and Loathe were all awesome in different ways and for different reasons. Deafhaven were great, aside from the technical difficulties which I didn't mind so much but I could see people who are more emotionally invested in them getting upset over, especially since they were doing their iconic Sunbather album beginning to end.
Absolute stand out of the day though, again predictably, was Igorrr. I love Igorrr, have been into them since back when he was releasing on NI's own Acroplane and Ad Noiseum. Saw him play a set at Bangface 2016. Seeing him blow up on the metal circuit and bring in more live elements to the shows since then has been an absolute pleasure. This time he had the full band, him on his hardware, his live drummer, guitarist and an opera singer providing vocals going through mostly stuff off the last two albums. he opened with a wee bit of breakcore and finished off again just by himself banging out the glitches, bass and drum breaks.
I ended up only seeing a wee bit of Devin Townsend, actually bumped into a guy I met in his own house last week after Kneecap, ended up hanging with him, his brother and their mate who I'd been talking to earlier at the start of Igorrr, then finished the weekend hanging with Jeff's mates, and other people who came around, including two lads from Lambeg, one of who recognised me from activist stuff back in the day and grew up in the street opposite my house, and his mate who was at Lagan literally just as I left. This country is a village.
Silly crack was had. It was a good end to a good day and the festival in general. I had a great time, could see myself coming back if they pull out another lineup like this years that just has a lot of stuff on it I really like. Or that could prove to be a fluke, we'll see. Would be good to get a crowd up for it if I do go back.
