Wood Festival 2008

United Kingdom | | 20 May 2008

In typical English fashion, the week leading up to the inaugural Wood festival is blessed with glorious sunshine and temperatures in the 70s. Come Friday morning, it all turns to grey cloud and rain showers but that doesn’t stop around 500 happy campers heading to the beautiful Braziers Park in Oxfordshire. Fresh for 2008 from the people behind the well established Truck festival, Wood was conceived as a spring warm-up featuring a smattering of up and coming artists and innovative ideas including arts and crafts workshops and campfire sing-songs. Powered entirely using solar panels, chip fat and even bicycles, this could well be a glimpse of the future as environmental concerns become a pressing concern.

On arrival, we enjoy the unusual experience of a choice of camping sites – either out in the open or under the cover of the numerous trees onsite. Then there are the toilets – designed to make use of the bodily fluids we waste on a daily basis, including an innovative water tap that looks like it comes direct from the Crystal Maze. While it can take the best part of a day to see all the sights at some festivals, there are no such problems at Wood, with everything condensed into a field no bigger than a couple of football pitches. A brief explore takes us from tent to sauna to campfire in a matter of minutes, although we are in serious need of a sit down after grinding five cupfuls of coffee beans in a bid to win a free espresso.

Aside from the numerous  young families, most early arrivals on Friday afternoon seem to be either working at Wood or performing but that soon changes as the clock reaches six and the site fills up.  By the time Smith and Brown become the first musical act to perform on the wonderfully petite outdoor Wood stage, there’s a healthy buzz of anticipation in the air. They play a nice acoustic set to warm things up but at this point it’s more about relaxing and getting into that festival state of mind.

After sampling the delights of the homemade soup and wholly appropriate wood-fired pizza sitting around the friendly campfire, The Epstein take centre stage for the evening’s finale. It’s only 9.30 but the winners of Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition last year show exactly why they are so highly rated. Playing tracks from their album Last Of The Charanguistas , the set ends with ‘Leave Your Light On’ which helps create a fitting atmosphere under the stars. The night concludes at the Cycle Stage where punters are asked to provide their own source of electricity via pedal power – perhaps surprisingly given the amount of alcohol consumed - and this goes on long into the wee hours.

The shrill sound of cockerels at dawn means it’s an early start on Saturday morning but there’s plenty to occupy the hours. Starting with the Anton Barbeau BOP Samba at 10.30 there’s a full programme of activities ranging from jewellery making to African drumming. I choose to try my hand at the excellent Poetry Workshop where we are taught to conjure up words that apply to our feelings of the moment before compiling two lines of our own poem. Although my effort might not make it into the bestsellers, it’s a lot of fun hearing the varied attempts with some surprisingly successful results.

We finish just in time to head over to the Tree stage to catch acoustic duo Indigo Moss, before the arrival of truck favourites Danny and the Champions of the World. Joined onstage by a pair of giant orangutans, they play a beautifully melodic set that even the returning rain cannot dampen. The layout of the festival means that it is easy to catch a glimpse of almost everything on show but the showpiece of Saturday night is almost scuppered by the elements as the generator goes down. After an hour flitting between the Wood stage and shelter, Get Cape.Wear Cape.Fly finally take the stage and it is worth the wait. Highlights include the wicked up-tempo track ‘Waiting For The Monster To Drown’ and the stirring ‘Call Me Ishmael’ which rounds off another wonderful day.

Sunday is a predictably lazy affair – more workshops and a long walk around the site, which was once owned by Mick Jagger, before the music starts up again. The organisers have left the best until last in terms of artists – Julia Higgins, Jeremy Walmsley and fantastic kora player Jali Fily Cissokho make the afternoon fly by. The weekend is rounded off in stunning fashion with Lightspeed Champion bringing down the house with his solo set and the The Coal Porters given the honour of final set. But in truth the abiding memory is not about who you have seen, it’s more about the whole experience. If the organisers had any doubts about doing this again next year, I’m sure their decision has been made already.