Oi! This is called a "Blog" !

Blogs are to be read from the bottom up. So if this is the first post you are reading, stop reading and start at the bottom!

Also please note that you can click on the pictures to make them larger, and to access the MOV files you will be taken to a Rapidshare page (you can then download the files for free, but careful - some of them are huge).

The MOV files will disappear if not accessed for more than 30 days, but you can always contact me and let me know if you are desperate to see them.

Finally, after each "section" you will see you have the ability to add a comment. Please do so if you want to say something, or recognise yourself or a friend. Please do not say anything disrespectful about any of the people: they may also be reading this blog (I will be advertising it on various psytrance boards). So be considerate. And remember: PEACE LOVE UNITY RESPECT.

Love you all loads, and thank you to the Indigo kids for a top party....

xxx

The amazing fire juggler during Naked Tourist's set (includes MOVIES)

Well, I promised it earlier, and here it is. Problem is, you really had to be there, so you may not wish to go to the bother of downloading these MOV files, although they're not as vast as some of the ones on this blog.

During Naked Tourist's set, towards the end of it I think, this Japanese fellow made a gap in the crowd and started juggling with fire. Now, I've seen this bollocks at Glastonbury, the Big Chill, Zambia, all over the place. Normally it passes me by. But this act was so awesome it was, for me, The Moment Of The Entire Festival. Oh, except the little matter of the eclipse of course, which was also kind of special.

He was throwing those little fiery thingumijigs all over the place, sometimes throwing three of them high into the air and catching them. Perhaps a couple of thousand people at that moment were dancing in front of him, but no one was at risk. This man's accuracy was unbelievable.


If you don't believe me when I say it was The Defining Moment, here's proof. When he finished his act, such was the elation of the crowd that dozens of people rushed forward, lifted the little Japanese fella up on their shoulders, and carried him off cheering - an honour normally only bestowed to Great People such as Bobby Moore or Gorgeous George Galloway. When he returned to the crowd moments later, we all rushed forward, myself included, to lay our hands on his sweaty hairless chest. I'm not sure why we did that, it was something that just needed to be done. As though we needed to touch him, to get some of his magic. It was quite bizarre. But extremely memorable. (Must have been even more memorable for him, to have hundreds of Crusties rushing forwards trying to touch his chest, I imagine...)

Anyway, I promised you some MOV files and here they are. You get a good idea about the whole thing from them, but these are very short files just a few seconds long. He did this for about 20 minutes. It was feckin amazing. Trust me. I was there.

File 1: (1.8 meg)
http://rapidshare.de/files/17216745/DSCN0225.MOV.html

File 2: (2.7 meg)
http://rapidshare.de/files/17284321/DSCN0227.MOV.html

File 3: (5 meg)
http://rapidshare.de/files/17284818/DSCN0228.MOV.html

File 4: (0.5 meg)
http://rapidshare.de/files/17284952/DSCN0229.MOV.html

Liquid dusk....

I was trying out the "dusk and sunset" feature on my camera, with various exposures. I'm delighted with the top picture, especially when you look at it blown up. The others were more experimental. I was going to delete the lower picture because it was very blurry, but I quite liked the effect so kept it. I think they call that serendipity. Or something.

Incidentally, the third photo down depicts a water pistol. Some kind people were helping the crowd refresh and not get too thirsty, by squirting water into their mouths every now and then - so thoughful - even if the water did taste a little on the metallic side.....

MOVIE: 90 meg (ouch), 7 meg and 9 meg of lasers and whatnot

If you go to
http://rapidshare.de/files/17220864/DSCN0205.MOV.html
you'll be able to see a short movie of some of the music and lasers. But let's face it, it's 90 meg and I'm sure you won't, unless you have an obscenely amazing broadband connection and plenty of patience. I won't lie to you: it's not the best quicktime movies on this blog - largely because a Nikon Coolpix L3 digital camera - whilst taking pretty amazing pictures during the daytime (as long as it's not of an eclipse) - and whilst it takes some pretty groovy mini movies during the daylight, sucks when trying to film at night. I did manage to get a whole tune though.

This one is a bit shorter (30 seconds) and is just 7 meg:
http://rapidshare.de/files/17282284/DSCN0200.MOV.html
which gives a mini example of some of the mayhem.

However, the best mini movie of the three, which lasts just over 30 seconds and is just 9 meg, has to be this one:
http://rapidshare.de/files/17283086/DSCN0207.MOV.html
It really is much better as you can see the lasers, unfortunately the tune isn't as engaging (one of Onyx's, I think) but all the same, this is a visual thing and it gives you the best example of the three. That was the view from the biosphere where the snotty energy balls were being sold.

The Liquid stage: at different times of the day

These three photographs were taken at exactly the same spot. The view of the lasers was quite breathtaking, with amazing white lasers, green lasers, and even purple ones. The green laser effect was the best I have ever seen, and I've seen a hell of a lot of lasers in my time. I have no idea how they did that "shooting" effect, where you actually see the spurts of green shoot across the sky like gunfire, and hitting the trees behind. Amazing. Unfortunately, these digital pics do not do them any justice.

The weather on the whole, apart from the Sunday night, Monday afternoon and Friday, was on the whole very good. Unlike in Glastonbury, where the clay prevents water from soaking away easily, just a few hours of sunshine would suffice for the ground to go hard again.

Also hats off to the excellent workers who dug gulleys and channels to stop the water from flooding too badly. I would often see bar staff, wearing their "Champions of Europe 2005" T-shirts, get a spade and widen a gulley to divert water away and into the river. You don't see the bar staff helping out like that at Glasto. And in spite of the massive deluge, there were no mass flooded areas as you are accustomed to seeing at other festivals when it rains. On the whole, this aspect was well organised and well thought out.

Three more random pics

Again, please let us know in the comments whether you or anyone you know is in these pics!

Sunburn

The sun was deceptively strong between Tuesday and Thursday (apart from a few minutes on the Wednesday, of course, when some satellite got in the way). The poor chap in the middle was glowing. It didn't help that it was impossible to buy sun block at the festival (or rather, it may have been possible in the "Mini Market" - I never went - but not a lot of people realised it was even there - I was only told about it on the last day!).

And... stretch!

We've all been there... needed a few stretch after some energetic dancing, get that circulation going again. These two girls did quite a few stretches. Sorry, that's quite a boring picture. I'll try to discriminate more in future....

Professional cameras

There were quite a few people with professional looking cameras around the time of the eclipse, some with massive lenses, many with tripods, and most of them equipped with various filters enabling them to photograph the sun. I liked the fact that serious photographers were into psytrance - or was it serious psytrancers were into photography? After all, if they were really into photographing the eclipse, the Liquid dancefloor was probably not the best place for it... so many people, potential light pollution from people trying to photograph the eclipse with their flash, etc. This particular photographer, who may or may not be Italian (I think his name may be Gian, but that could be another photographer I chatted to) got into the mood and covered his face with glitter.

A few more random crowd-shots

Yep, that is a Spider-Man outfit in one of those photos. Just a few more random shots of people. Let us know if you're one of them!

Sitting down....

Looks green, doesn't it? This was quite deceptive. From an angle, the grass always looked long, lush and inviting, but when up close it tended to be quite sparse, with a few tufts poking through in between the moist earth. Not that it mattered, really. As these guys prove quite adequately.

Hippy chic(k)

Being a bit of a tunic fan myself, I did like this girl's dress.

I was going to ask her where she got it from but she didn't appear to be in a terribly good mood for some reason. Perhaps the fact I was following her around with my camera had something to do with that, though.

Reunions

There's something quite touching about these two pictures, particularly the upper one. The moment appeared at the time to be a really special one, as though the two people hadn't seen one another for years. Probably in fact they hadn't seen another for a few minutes. But it seemed special to me, in any case.

Pretty girl... shame about the feet

I've looked at this photo a number of times, but each time I am drawn to those quite disturbing feet poking out from the bottom of those strange sock things. Was that intentional? Were they socks that have simply worn through because of so much dancing? Is that paint to match her khaki-coloured top or is that mud?

If you are she, or you know her, please let us know. We are worried.

Another bloke with an unusual dress sense

Ahhh... this put a smile on my face.

I must say, I quite liked this particular outfit - not sure how well it would go down in the local pub though....

It's that man again!

Yep, two days later and he's still wearing his fetching Turkish ladies' dress.

More faces in the crowd

Beer

Here we have some people enjoying beer. And in the case of the second photo (yours truly), I'm enjoying two!

Another raver

Another friendly face from the crowd.

No idea who he is, mind, but someone out there will recognise him.

This one's quite nice too

A similar picture to the last one, from a similar angle, and some more mad expressions on the people's faces, although technically not as satisfactory because of the shadow from the décor. But all the same, I am sure some of you will recognise someone in this photo, especially when you click on it to enlarge it. Let me know if you're there!

I am so proud of this photograph

This picture, when you view it in High Definition, is the bollocks - even though I say so myself. If you click on it of course you'll see it larger, but Blogger still strips some of the resolution out. The quality and the cleanness of this image is excellent - you can see people's expressions even those in the distance. It was a bloody good tune, as I'm sure the faces reveal.

Sorry that I am blowing my own trumpet, but I don't normally have such success with a photograph :-)

MOVIE: Mad dancing (48 megs!)

Well, you'd need a very good connection to view this 48 Meg file - don't attempt to view it online, visit the following URL:
snurl.com/oofm

This MOV file starts off sideways (sorry about that, I'd had a few) and shows the tall lanky guy from the previous post dancing to the excellent music. The music's particularly good in this file. Then I start focussing in on various dancers' faces, and then a hang-glider soars above us (that was freaky). I got that. Then unfortunately I left the camera still running while I drank some beer, sorry about that.

If only I had got the parachutist too! Suddenly a parachute came down out of nowhere (I think it must have been the hang-glider again) and landed near the Liquid stage. That's some way to gatecrash a festival!!

The tall lanky guy with the long hair....

This tall lanky fellow was everywhere in the festival: dancing like a trooper during the psytrance, and even singing bluegrass with the Turkish flatbread makers by night. Quite a nice chap, I think - although I never got to speak to him. But he looked really friendly and happy at all times.

Some of the locals found it harder to blend in....

Occasionally, the odd family of locals would come and watch the goings on, as though we were creatures in a zoo, mouths open. Men on their own would tend to sit by the side of the road and watch from a distance, but this family decided to come right up to the Liquid stage and watch the mad psychedelic goings on. I took this picture because I felt it encapsulated the moment. (But there again, all pictures do that, don't they?)

Day-time juggler

Not as spectacular as the amazing Japanese fire juggler (more about him later). In fact, this guy was not spectactular at all. But it captured a nice moment in time, of happiness and of laissez-faire.

I even have an 11 Meg movie of him juggling (with some close-ups on people watching him and dancing), if you're so inclined. Again, right-click and save-as.

You can find it here:
http://rapidshare.de/files/17199474/DSCN0119.MOV.html

More artwork and décor at the Liquid stage

I have mentioned the artwork in the Liquid stage area a few times, but here are a few more examples for your delectation. The work that had gone into these pieces was quite breathtaking, and it all withstood the various deluges and the massive hailstones of Monday afternoon.

My favourite was the large green painting stretched across canvas, in the second photo. But the tree (left) is a small detail taken from the breathtaking purple canvas above.

It all added to the magic and beauty of the event. Well done.

MOVIE: People dancing near the Liquid stage

It's a whopping 29 Megs in size, but it has sound, lasts a couple of minutes, and is really quite fun. Lots of close-ups on people dancing. Great atmosphere.

Download it from:
http://rapidshare.de/files/17198147/DSCN0111.MOV.html

Do remember though: it's 29 Meg, so when you go to the Rapidshare site, go to the "Free link" and save-as rather than watch it online. This one is worth downloading, I think. But don't forget - Rapidshare delete all files that are not accessed over a 30-day period, so start downloading now!!

The special glasses

Unlike at the Solipse in Zambia, where it was a bit of a free-for-all and not enough glasses, there were plenty at the Soulclipse festival this year.

Crowd reaction to the eclipse

The eclipse was wonderful, magical. Some people, like this chap here on the right, following the eclipse, continued watching the moon move away from the sun, standing in the middle of the dancefloor with a smile from ear to ear.

Others, such as the young man in purple above, even prayed at one point. Many couples hugged one another for long periods of time, in awe at the phenomenon they had just witnessed - for some of them, it was their very first total solar eclipse.

It was a wonderful experience, and conversation soon spread to Greenland, Siberia, China, Easter Island, and the various other locations for eclipses in the coming years.

Eclipse! Yeah!! Wow!

Digital cameras are great, aren't they? You can take some amazing photos of ravers off their tits gurning and bumming the bassbins but when it comes to a natural phenomenon that is 1400 million kilometres in diametre and can be seen perfectly with the natural eye, the results are shite.

The upper picture I took by holding my eclipse glasses over the lens, and the second one was without anything. Useless.

I did record a MOV file of some of the experience, but it's 40 megabytes in size so only download it if you have seriously good bandwidth (and do right-click and save-as to your hard disk, rather than attempt to watch it online). I started recording half-way into totality, and it shows the sky getting suddenly brighter and loads of people whooping in the distance, and Emer enjoying every minute, but it won't win any Oscars....
http://rapidshare.de/files/17194831/DSCN0106.MOV.html

Stiltwalkers alert!

Stiltwalkers. You either love 'em or you hate 'em, but you know they'll be prominent at any festie you happen to go to. However, hats off to Soulclipse for actually putting them to good use. Not only were stiltwalkers used to hand out the special eclipse glasses - no matter how nutted the ravers were, you couldn't miss these 3 metre high monsters handing out the specs as they waded through the dancefloor. But then they went one better. Just in case anyone there was not aware of what an eclipse actually was, they had stiltwalkers dressed as the sun, the moon and the earth, to show exactly what happens. By using a large black disk, the dancers were able to demonstrate, via a visual aid, how the earth's shadow obfuscates the moon's corona. Oh, is that not it? Shite, I wasn't paying attention, I was kinda getting into Hallucinogen at the time.... :-))

I actually made a small movie (just 7 megabytes, with sound) for you to watch. You can download it here (however, right-click and save-as to your hard disk - it'll work better!)
http://rapidshare.de/files/17192110/DSCN0098.MOV.html

Tribe of Frog

This lovely couple are Ingrid (Gibraltar) and Nathan (Bristol), from the UK branch of Tribe of Frog. Ingrid was at the Zambia Solipse party as well - don't forget to send me that photograph you have of me!

Rattle and hum...

This upstanding young man in a crop top and jeans couldn't get enough of those phat basslines and would push himself up against the PA speaker system as close as possible. At one point it appeared he was trying to bum the subwoofer. Oh well, different strokes....

Dirty Dancing

This guy - bless him - really cracked us up. He was playing frisbee earlier with some girls, and whenever he'd let go of the frisbee he would go "yeahh" and pulled a funny face. He wasn't aware he was doing it. It was a little cruel, but Leo (q.v.) then went "yeahh" out loud just when the above gentleman threw the disk, which was hilariously funny - although it embarrassed him, I fear.

However, the man's embarrassment was ephemeral, for within a few minutes he was getting down to some downright dirty dancing on the dancefloor. Yeahh!

I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy it hurts....

This guy danced while hanging onto one of the struts of the biosphere, swaying until his pants were almost coming off. He looked as though he was enjoying himself, though....

Do ya wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang...

While Michele Adamson can clearly carry it off, glitter (especially when applied too liberally) did not always work. However, these forerunners of Crustie Glam, which we will no doubt see on the catwalks in years to come, was always guaranteed to put a smile on one's face. I bet he'll still be finding bits of glitter in his beard come the summer solstice, mind....

Fashion for the girls

However, not just the men showed a sense of fashion. Popular among the ladies at Soulclipse (particularly those coming from Japan) were these charming little parasols. Considering the poorly stocked offical bars (Tuborg beer, water, Pepsi and not much else), this was unfortunately the closest most of us ever came to a cocktail during the festival.

London, Paris, Milan... Soulclipse?

Let's face it: Crustie fashion ain't the best. Unless you are wowed by hair-dye and little silver frogs in the belly-button, it ain't what you'd call haute couture. Even me, in my Ghanaian orange tunic, I have to bow down my head and admit that I am simply not cutting edge when it comes to festival clobber.

But along came this guy, with an amazing outfit. Psychedelic smilies on his superhero cape, and the grooviest trousers this side of the Sea of Marmara, he wowed the crowd at the Liquid stage as he rushed to and fro, cape fluttering in the wind. I wanted that outfit. Hell, if I hadn't spent all my Lira on those Israeli omelettes earlier I'd have made him a serious offer....

More mad fire people

This young man, with a cane and carrying some kind of fur garment, was also obsessed with the bonfire, dancing and prancing around the flames.

The Bonfire Bitch

Well, if you were beside that bonfire you couldn't have missed this particular nutter. A young girl, probably local (at a guess, from Turkey, from the T-shirt she wore later) would dance around the fire barefoot, having multiple orgasms as she would writhe in between the embers, calling the fire her lover, and moaning in ecstasy. No, not an official performance artist (note the yellow armband), just someone at her first ever psychedelic trance festival (apparently). Something tells me it won't be her last.

The Bonfire Doctors

While dancing at the Liquid stage or freezing your nuts off in the biosphere, chomping on snot balls and sipping scalding chai, you no doubt saw these amazing bonfires out of the corner of your eyes, tried to make your way to them, but failed to find a way across the steep ravine (there was a footbridge, which I eventually found but constantly kept losing). When I eventually got to the bonfire I was met with some interesting characters, and few more so than the bonfire doctors. These Californian guys - who appeared to be ordinary punters since they wore yellow wristbands like me, and not orange ones - would disappear in a 4x4 and every few hours would come back with loads of wood to rebuild the bonfire. Wearing a lamp upon his forehead, and dressed head to toe in a surgeon's cape, the chief doctor would then proceed to build up the fire, quite beautifully, and then drive off, supposedly to help out on another bonfire or to get more wood. This routine would go on all night. Who were these people?

There was also a couple (more Americans) who fed the crowd around the fire for free (so much more in the spirit of a festival, than the rip-off merchants in the market area. They put jacket potatoes wrapped in foil into the embers and fed us when they were cooked. One couple, from New York possibly, made chicken and noodle soup for the starving munters sat around the fire... although minus the chicken because of her concerns over bird flu, apparently.

Energy Snot Balls

I am so excited to get a rare photograph of the queen of energy balls. If you have attended any number of crustie raves and festies you will have come across this amazing woman at some point, normally when you are absolutely exhausted, trying to pull yourself out of a hole. She's the one with the big red bowl, mixing snot, chocolate, wheatgerm and other things into these balls that she will later sell in the wee hours of the morning. The whole preparation is quite ceremonial. Two young guys (not pictured), both Indian or Middle Eastern, one chubby and the other with these amazing white teeth, help her with the mixture, pounding away at the concoction while the chubby guy adds his own snot to help the binding process. I believe there is a mystical reason for this: something to do with gnosis following being lured by samsara or something. For when you are truly in need of sustenance, of something to bring you back to life, as you crawl through the biosphere, and you discover the Mage with her ready-made balls next to her, selling them for a Euro apiece (or whatever you can afford), as soon as you take one bite, you are brought back to life, as though you were suddenly enlightened. The power and the energy within these snot balls is truly wonderous. Thankfully, as slowly you become more enlightened with each mucus-soaked bite, and take in the energy that the chubby Indian fellow has so graciously given you, you discover you can stand again, as you make your way back to the dance floor in search of samsara again....

Alright Cobber!

In amongst the Swedes, the Macedonians, the Irish, the Japanese, the Israelis, the Spanish, the Mexicans, the Finns, the Germans, the Brits, the Turks, the everpresent Ditch Bitch and the Moroccans there were quite a few Aussies too. Here we have Tony and (if my mind doesn't fail me) someone called Kat. They didn't know one another prior to the festival but had become very close during the previous two days at the Soulclipse. Tony was out of it - but a nice guy. He probably won't remember me very well, although he may remember meeting me at the beginning. They seemed quite a nice collective of doofers from down-under, holding a large peacock-feather aloft at all times in case one of them were to get lost while in the biosphere. Could Tony or Kat hold the key to the mystery of the Ditch Bitch's missing passport?? who knows!! :-))

Sláinte!

I bumped into these guys from Ireland, who were camped not far from us, in one of the biospheres near the Liquid stage in the middle of the night. The guy in the blue shirt is a musician, but his laptop went down last year and he lost all his music, and all his software. He has tried desperately to get it fixed ever since but the experience has been so traumatic that he has simply gone off the rails, going from party to party and getting drunker and drunker. He desperately wants someone to fix his laptop so that he can get his musical career back on tracks. Any help gratefully appreciated.

здраво македонски !

Can't remember this chappie's name - I think it was Borat (but that doesn't sound right) but he hails from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and came with a whole tribe of his comrades to trance the night away. A top bloke, he'll remember me I am sure, as will his friends. Got an open invitation to Skopje too!

Leo

Leo deserves a section all by himself as he's an all round lovely guy and we spent quite a lot of time with him - even meeting up afterwards in Antalya for another all-night session. An actor who loves his psytrance, you may have bumped into him in the Morocco psytrance party or around the UK. With a tendency to lose himself for hours at a time, you can catch Leo on stage this summer at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, where he wil be in The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Babe, The Sheep-Pig.

Other DJs on the Liquid stage

The problem with the main stages during the night-time was that it was almost impossible to get a decent photograph from any of the artists. They were up on a huge stage, surrounded by flashing lights and lasers. Another problem was that if you tried to stand further back and use the zoom, there's be décor and all sorts of other psy stuff getting in the way...


However, I did managed to snap a couple of acts, I'm glad to say. But another problem was that the line-up kept changing (understandable, considering one of the stages was out of action from Monday to Thursday), and the pieces of paper stuck on the bar invariably got blown off or was not updated. I took a photo of the line-up at one stage so that I could keep checking the LCD screen on my phone, but within a couple of hours it had already changed. From the above, I remember being wowed by the progressive D-Tek and Naked Tourist, and finding some of the trance coming from Para Hulla (whom I'd never heard live before) quite original and refreshing. I remember being scared by some really twisted dark stuff around midnight which may or may not have been Olli, but most of the night was a bit of a crazy blur...

Naked Tourist (above) wowed the crowds from about 4:30 onwards on the Thursday morning, accompanied by the most amazing fire-juggler I have ever seen (more about him, including several MOV files, later). This was one of the sets of the night, to be sure.

The evening before, we had been treated to Ticon, Chromosome, and another amazing set by D-Tek. This was a great progressive set with some quite awesome basslines. One song - Reeboot I think - had me in ecstasy.

One act that was easy to photograph was X-dream - especially with Jan's wife and new member Ariel (now sporting a shocking head of red hair) coming out towards the front of the stage in her tight leather pants. I was not keen on the latest We Interface album, on which Ariel features heavily, missing the old trippy stuff like Trip to Trancesylvania, but it certainly works live - albeit sometimes a little cheesy. One track - The Frog I think - got the crowd orgasmic, although I was desperate throughout for them to play Imagine the Whole World was on a Trip which unfortunately they did not play. Although I did manage to get a snap of Jan in the café afterwards.

The Chill Out DJs

Teo (from California) did a storming set on the Tuesday afternoon - one of the best sets I heard away from the Liquid stage - unfortunately I do not have a photo of him (I was too busy lying blissed out by the river) but I do have a picture of this chap in a yellow jumper - Shahar from Aleph Zero (Israel) and editor of Isratrance.com. The bird with the glitter 'pon her face is the lovely DJ Michele Adamson, who was on at 7 in the Chill Out.

More frivolry in the Chill Out area

Here are a few people who were chilling out at the Chill Out. Australians, Swedes, Finns, Israelis, Irish, British, American, Macedonian, Japanese, this was one of the most multicultural festivals I had been to. At a guess, I would say 30% Israeli, 25% Japanese, 15% Scandinavian, 10% German, 10% Spanish and Latin American, and the remaining 10% from all over the planet... But there were Turks too: the two very loving guys sitting on the bales of hay were local trancers from Antalya.

Rock on!

Another nutter - no idea who he was, but he was amusing all the same. And of course, no festival would be complete without someone blowing gigantic bubbles.....

The nutter in the Turkish dress

Everyone at the festival will at some point have bumped into this crazy chappie wearing a female Turkish dress, which even had some kind of fetish tail accoutrement (not pictured). He appeared to be permanently off his head (especially on the Monday night) and never failed to put a smile on people's faces whenever they needed cheering up during the rain....

Tom, Richard and Sade

Tom and Richard are from Germany and we bumped into them many times throughout the festival. Lovely chaps, and I hope to meet them again shortly, hopefully at the Full Moon festival one of these years. Sade hails from Mexico: her first trip abroad, she came on her own to Soulclipse - brave girl. She was another lovely person whom we bumped into a few times. She is thinking of setting up her own psytrance festival in the Mexican desert where she lives, so watch this space!

Jayman

Many of the splendid things you saw in the previous post are apparently thanks to this friendly person, Jayman. We met him on the Monday, and he urged us to check out the Liquid stage as soon as possible, which we did.

The glorious Liquid stage (plus panoramic picture)

This was fabulous. Beautiful décor by day - and by night complemented by some of the maddest lasers I have ever seen (I'll be uploading a movie file - with sound - shortly).

All the above photos form part of a 360º panoramic picture:

However, the above won't look like much. To appreciate it, you should download the 19 megabyte MOV which you can then scroll left and right and view it in true 360º fashion. Right-click and save-as, but don't forget that it's 19 megabytes so only attempt it if you have broadband. It's worth it, though - and the best panoramic picture I took during the whole holiday. You can download it from here:
http://rapidshare.de/files/17148750/soulclipse-liquidstage.mov.html

However, I will be uploading smaller MOV files shortly which will capture the essence even better.

Spending the night at the Chill Out tent

We saw Tuesday arrive at the Chill Out tent. Many people, whose tents were possibly flooded, spent the night on the warm rugs, wrapped in their sleeping bags. Others danced, whilst dogs lazed on the floor. There were many, many dogs at this festival - more than I have ever seen at a festival, in fact.

Booze

This was actually better priced. 5 Turkish Lira (about 2 quid) per pint of Tuborg beer, 2 Lira for a can of soft drink, or just 1 Lira (that's about 40p) for a small bottle of water. The queue was a bit of a pain at times, but the trick was to stock up on little vouchers and then just go straight to the drinks queue instead of the voucher queue. Even so, there were scams going on: the beer stall beside the two stages took Euros, Lira and Dollars. No problem. The beer stall in the market area only took Lira "because our computer system can't deal with Euros" (errm, there were no computers anywhere, money was simply stuffed into shoeboxes). Of course, the fact that there was a money exchanging stall right next to this beer tent, possibly run by the barstaff's colleagues, was purely coincidental.

The bar staff though were friendly, and all sported red "Champions of Europe" Liverpool shirts for some reason (even stranger, since when questioned they all preferred Arsenal or Chelsea). On the whole, the bar was the best run thing in the festival, and the best priced. The staff at the bar tent beside the main stage were particularly friendly.

I took the photo above at that stage: I liked the trousers the girl was wearing, with the No Entry sign over the bum area.

The Turkish bread women

About the only food item that was economically priced was the Turkish flatbread, priced at 3 Turkish Lira each (just over a quid). Problem was, they weren't very nice. There was only the one filling to choose from (very very salty Turkish feta cheese and salty spinach) which was another missed opportunity - how hard would it have been to have offered more fillings?

However, I am sure they weren't complaining. They probably made more money in that festival than they would in a year. The queue was constant, almost 24 hours a day. Watching them make it, almost in a conveyor belt fashion (one kneads the dough, the other rolls it out, the other tends to the fire, etc), was far more entertaining than actually eating the damn things.

It was also amusing to see how the men actually did absolutely nothing, except bark orders at the hard-working women should a flame not be hot enough.

The outdoors eating area

The one thing that was downright poor about the Soulclipse festival was the food. It was overpriced, and not enough selection. This was not the fault of the Soulclipse organisers of course, but more the fault of both greed and lack of foresight from the vendors. Food is cheap to buy in Turkey, so it seemed quite inappropriate to charge 6 or 7 Euros for a piece of crap. In Glastonbury and festivals in the UK, where the food is more expensive to source, it is both cheaper and more varied. This was poor.

"Pizzas" were 5 Euro for a frozen pizza base covered with a mean handful of cheese and plumped into an oven for three minutes. Invariably, your order would end up going to someone else, especially if the guy in charge had had a few too many. Crepes were also 5 Euro, but boringly just nutella and a few bits of nut and hundreds and thousands - how easy would it have been to have offered a savoury alternative as well? And in the land of the kebab, one would have thought that a Doner Kebab stall - so popular already in the original countries of most of the ravers - would have been an obvious choice... but no one set one up.

The only decent food was to be had at the Israeli omelette stall, but even they were pricey - especially if paying in Turkish Lira (5 Euros or 10 Turkish Lira - whereas in fact 5 Euros are 7.5 Turkish Lira - so therefore cheaper in Euros). But at least their food was very nice. However, there is a limit to the amount of omelette rolls you can have in a festival. I think I managed about six.

The Beach - and a Panoramic picture

Yes, there was a beach. And you could swim in the river if you were so inclined (many were). This was a lovely little area of the festival that some people never even knew about. Beside a little café, this was an excellent little spot for some sunbathing.

The above pictures all form part of a larger 360º image:

The above won't look like much, but when you view it in a 360º rendering package, it gives you a good 360º view of the Beach area.

I have turned it into a hi-res 25 megabyte MOV file which you can scroll through by dragging left and right. If you want to view it, you should copy it down to your hard disk (right-click and save-as: don't forget, it's 25 meg!) and then you can view it at your will.Only attempt downloading it if you have a fast connection, natch!Here's the download link:

http://rapidshare.de/files/17143851/soulclipse-beach.mov.html

HOWEVER, I have also made a much shorter MOV file, which is less than 5 megabytes in size. It is of lower resolution, but it gives a good idea of what the area is like. I suggest you now go and download the following: (ONLY 5 meg!!)

http://rapidshare.de/files/17146294/DSCN0048.MOV.html

The rafts came in handy

These rafts were put down by Kano, the rafting company who had a stall nearby promoting their white-water rafting excursions, to help some festival-goers cross a particularly muddly puddle.

However, I think it was more a publicity coup for them... it wasn't that bad!!

The flood - and the rainbow

Fifteen minutes before the opening ceremony - whirling dervishes and all - the heavens opened. Hailstones as large as marbles fell from the sky with such ferocity that the ground was soon covered inches thick in these large white pellets of ice. To protect the expensive equipment, someone put sheets over the roof of the stage... which turned into a big and costly mistake. The sheets got heavy and brought the entire stage down.

As you will see, I only have one photo of the aftermath: there's no point dwelling on something negative, when there was so much positive with this festival. The stage fell, but it didn't matter. It was back up and running by Thursday evening (three days later) and in the meantime, it meant that the liquid stage was even more kicking - everyone was there instead!

So instead I decided to take more photographs of the wonderful rainbow that followed the flood. I hope you like them!

These strange structures must have taken ages to create. Dotted between the main stage and the beach, and made of day-glo strings in a moiré effect, they were appreciated by all. The eye within the pyramid photograph is a close-up of the top of the structure in the upper-right picture.

Flora at the Festival

This small but perfectly formed poppy was growing in a field beside the beach area of the Soulclipse festival. I decided to crank up the macrophotography option on my digital camera, as I couldn't resist a picture of this delightful little flower....

Panoramic view: The Chill Out area

The above won't look like much, but when you view it in a 360º rendering package, it gives you a good 360º view of the area beside the river running alongside the Chill Out.

I have turned it into a hi-res 26 megabyte MOV file which you can scroll through by dragging left and right. If you want to view it, you should copy it down to your hard disk (right-click and save-as: don't forget, it's 26 meg!) and then you can view it at your will.

Only attempt downloading it if you have a fast connection, natch!Here's the download link:
http://rapidshare.de/files/17141625/soulclipse-chillout.mov.html

Giant mushrooms in the Chill Out area

These psychedelic mushrooms stood proudly in the Chill Out area beside the wonderful river. A joy to behold, they added to the magic of the décor and provided shade as well. Great design.

The Chill Out area

As you will have noticed, this blog is called My Locus Amoenus. A Locus Amoenus is a "beautiful place" in Latin, and in Medieval literature one would often come across a clearing in a wood, by a river, where a Christian king would ravish a beautiful Moorish princess. This was known as a "locus amoenus" and Soulclipse had one of its own. To the cool psychedelic pulse of great DJs, from Teo to Shpongle to Michele Adamson, festival goers would relax in hammocks beside the great river, sipping on their chai and smoking oddly shaped cigarettes. :-)

Panoramic view: The Main Stage and Chai tent

The above won't look like much, but when you view it in a 360º rendering package, it gives you a good 360º view of the area around the main stage.

I have turned it into a hi-res 30 megabyte MOV file which you can scroll through by dragging left and right. If you want to view it, you should copy it down to your hard disk (right-click and save-as: don't forget, it's 30 meg!) and then you can view it at your will.

Only attempt downloading it if you have a fast connection, natch!

Here's the download link:

http://rapidshare.de/files/17135717/soulclipse-mainstage.mov.html

Our camp

We chose to camp near the Chill Out stage, on flat ground. At Glastonbury I always pitch on a slope (in the Dragon field near the Stone Circle, if you're interested) but we didn't expect there to be a sudden deluge so assumed we'd be all right pitching on flat ground. In hindsight, probably not the best of moves, although there again the rain was short-lived and it wasn't long before the ground had firmed up again.

In the five days, we only actually slept for two nights (too many DJs, too little time) so it didn't really matter. By the time we were ready to sleep, we'd be knackered and could sleep anywhere. We were beside a little brook from which frogs croaked all night (somehow I don't think they were real frogs...) ;-)

With the rain beginning to fall on that first Sunday evening, we realised that we had better start enjoying the festival. Fortunately, there were plenty of signs telling us where to go, where to find the market, where to find the toilets (not that they needed a sign, you could just follow your nose and you'd find them).

Some signs were clearer than others....

Getting there

The only headache, as far as we were concerned, was getting to the festival site. I had reserved a place on the coach to pick us up from Cumhuriyet Square in central Antalya at 2pm on the Sunday. It never came. So we got a taxi to the airport to try and hook up with the official coaches that were supposedly leaving 24 hours a day, every two hours, from there. 25 YTL later we got to the airport with all our bags, only to encounter utter chaos. First of all I headed to a dreadlock of crusties and sat down with them - they were under the impression that the coach was leaving from there. After an hour or so I decided to stretch the legs and go for a walk, where I discovered behind another building a thousand or so more crusties who were also waiting. It soon transpired that the original group was probably just one or two crusties sitting down to make a roll-up, and eventually a crowd formed around them thinking this was the coach departure point. Not that anything was happening at the real point. Some people had waited for up to five hours and whenever a coach would turn up it would be swamped with people scrambling to get aboard, only to be told that it was going somewhere else entirely. In the end, I did what many others reluctantly did: paid for a taxi, after being given a quote for €60 Euro.

We shared a cab with Goran, an Israeli guy who was late for his shift at the Chai stall at the festival, and whose mates were still waiting at the airport for their luggage which had not arrived from Tel Aviv. Halfway through the journey, the taxi driver told us that it was actually €70 (almost everyone tries to rip you off in Turkey, unfortunately) but we fortunately got away with paying €60 plus 10 YTL, which wasn't too bad. Only that where the taxi dropped us off - the ticket collection point - was a considerably long way still from the festival site.

Hats off though to the guys who ran the ticket collection. I had two e-Tickets and the well-managed queue moved quickly along (see photo). Ticket numbers were checked against our passports on laptops, and soon we were wearing our yellow wristbands. Time to scramble onto another coach. Eventually, after nonsensically having to scramble onto a third coach halfway there, we finally got to the festival site.

This is me

Well this is me. You may have seen me dancing around at some point, often in this Ghanaian tunic, full of the joys of Spring. You may not have. But it's nice to put a face to a name so I'll start by introducing myself. I am Tristán White, I was also at the Zambia Solipse festival as well, and this time I was accompanied by my lovely wife Emer:

That's her there - I'm sure you met her at some point too. Occasionally cursing the mud or the inadequate lavatorial facilities, but almost always with a smile on her face. OK, so now you know who we are, it's time to show some more pics from the party.....

Photos from the Soulclipse Festival

Were you there? Then you'll probably find a picture of yourself amongst all the crowd scenes from the Soulclipse festival on this blog. I really hope you enjoy these pictures, and please make sure that you add comments!!

What a fabulous party! Well done, Indigokids... looking forward to the next one.

Tristán