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.