Bulldog Bash 2004

Bikes, beers, beards, babes and babes!

Beer, bikes, beards, bands and babes. A high octane cocktail mixed to premium rocket fuel potency by the organisers of Britain's premier motorcycle gathering - Bulldog Bash is to bikers what Glastonbury is to hippies.

We've said it before about this festival, and we'll say it again here - this is by far the safest event we have ever had the pleasure of coming to. Despite a prominent absence of 'official' security and the presence of so many of the sorts of people who you'd normally think of as potential trouble if you saw more than two of them walk into your local pub, Bulldog Bash has virtually no crime statistics and there is a pervading sense of camaraderie. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that the biker community that runs the event also self-polices it - and lets not kid ourselves...these are people who might be the salt of the earth, but frankly you wouldn't want to upset them!

Set in the heart of Shakespeare country, Long Marston airstrip is just a few miles from Stratford and has become home to the Bash - now in its 18th year. Prior to that, the site was the location of the Pheonix Festival during that event's short but joyful existence. The key reason for the Bash choosing this spot to call home is almost certainly the airtstrip itself. It's been a long time since a plane flew from here (as the rotting carcasses of a few ancient aircraft testify), but the long stretch of tarmac now serves a higher purpose than the mundanity of take-off and landing - it's become a testing ground for men with nerves of steel and balls of brass who cling to some of the most powerful machines ever made and allow themselves to be hurled down the track at ferocious speeds as they seek to shave another millisecond or two off the track record.

Bulldog Bash is indeed a celebratory experience for devotees of bikes and trikes of all shapes and sizes. Gleaming red and yellow Jap monsters rub fairings with enormous American chopped show-bikes, and riders in pristine race-leathers are sat on the grass chatting to denim clad, bearded bears with Hells Angels patches and beer guts proudly exclaiming a life of bar-room excess. Oh yes, and along with the bikes there is a healthy dose of great bands - not a huge number by any means, but ample to sate the appetites of people looking for alternative entertainment to the dragstrip, custom bike show, topless bike wash or wall of death!

Highlights of the weekend on the music front are certainly Breed 77, The Alarm, Beachbuggy, Saltdog, Never The Bride and The Wildhearts. It says something when both of a festival's headline acts pull out through injury and ill-health and nobody really minds! Whilst a lot of people were no doubt looking forward to the stage antics of Insane Clown Posse and the geriatric exhortations of Chuck Berry, the stand-in replacements - The Alarm and The Wildhearts - didn't leave anybody feeling let down.

Breed 77 have certainly come a long way in a short time. They may have been playing together for several years now, but it's only really since their storming single 'The River' from earlier this year that they have got onto the public radar. Now people can't get enough of their exuberantly melodic latin rock, and they are clearly learning to enjoy the reaction that they almost always manage to elicit from festival crowds.

The Alarm need no introduction, and it's a huge testament to the quality of their songs and the breadth of their fan base that after all these years they can still command regular capacity crowds at events as diverse as Bulldog Bash and Guilfest.