Glade Festival 2008 Review

Glade Festival 2008 Review

25 July, 2008 | 8.51AM

• Section: Music News Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: Caleb Rakes

Glade Festival, since its beginning as an added sound system at Glastonbury festival has expanded to become one of the biggest UK festivals highlighting underground, bass-driven experimental music.

Now in it’s fourth year the Glade festival is renowned for mixing the likes of trance, breaks, electronica and hard IDM. This year was no different with headliners Autechre, Stanton Warriors and Jeff Mills.

After the catastophic weather events of Glade 2007, it was a difficult decision to drag myself there again.

Bumping into Jimmy Mofo (head of breaks label Mofo Recordings), he reminded me of my statement last year stating I would never do this again.

For those who aren’t aware of Glade 2007, all I can say was that a flash flood of biblical proportions turned the campsite into the world’s largest mud bath. All public transportation to the festival had been cancelled, forcing your intrepid reporter to hitch-hike to the event.

But less of the past and more of 2008. The festival was blessed with beautiful weather, and a reduced capacity meant that there was less stress in getting into tents to see acts, and a more enjoyable environment.

First up in the breaks tent was the Drumattic Twins, aka Shades of Rhythm, performing their live decks n’ effects. The noisy breaks duo worked up the crowd with their breaks-fuelled bassline rhythms.

Following up was the mighty Noisia.

Starting up with the heavy, gain overdriven breaks tracks ‘Seven Stitches’ and breaking into ‘Yellow Brick’, Noisia started bringing up the crowd into a steaming drum & bass set.

Mixing in the darker stuff such as ‘Exodus’ with lighter material such as Commix’s ‘Be True’, The Plump DJs who followed definitely struggled to bring the crowd back in after such a heavy set.

Headlining the Glade stage that night were Pendulum.

Filling the tent full of drum & bass heads and those who just wanted to see what the fuss was about, Pendulum brought their live mix of drum & bass and maximum rock to a whole next level.

Kicking off the set with ‘Fasten Your Seatbelt’ the band then continued to focus on newer material from their latest album.

Although the energy was high and the band were highly interactive with the crowd, the band were limited by the imposed sound restrictions.

They had a lot of hype to live up to, and as thoroughly entertaining as they were, they didn’t managed to fulfill the crowd’s expectations - certainly not as the new ‘Prodigy’ that a lot of people had likened them to.

Saturday – and the gods blessed us with yet more sunshine.

What better way to start your day with some breakcore.

Indeed I was beckoned to the Overkill tent with breakcore for breakfast.

Wisp was added last minute and treated all the lucky morning goers to his hybrid sound of 808 electronica, blissful synth chill out and up front breakcore.

Next up were Spymania legends Cassette Boy and DJ Rubbish.

For those who don’t know about Spymania, all you need to know is that this label gave birth to the likes of Squarepusher and Jamie Lidell.

So you wouldn’t be at all surprised to be watching a cockney in a boxing outfit, with two grown men jumping around in naked monkey suits, trying to fight each other.

Cassette Boy have been the kings of mash up for the past ten years, and their live shows - although not the most challenging - are extremely entertaining.

Following this comedy side-show, Planet Mu’s Ital Tek’s blissful, epic dubstep was perfect for a Saturday afternoon.

Billy Nasty also followed suit, swapping up front techno for a more leftfield set featuring Aphex Twin’s ‘Window Licker’ and an extended mix of Modeselektor’s ‘The White Light’, in what was perhaps one of the best sets of the weekend.

Vex’d were playing their last live gig together at Glade, as both members are making their separate ways for family commitments.

They didn’t disappoint with their live, mash-up dubstep sound, dropping in everything from Dizzee Rascal through to Ikonika.

The act worked the crowd up in a sweat-driven turbulence of dubstep adrenaline.

Following Drop The Lime’s cancellation was The Bug.

With a live MC duo of FlowDan and Daddy Freddy, The Bug, aka Kevin Martin played a true to form ragga set, bouncing off the MCs and playing entirely to the crowd.

Daddy Freddy eventually stole the show and had the crowd eating out of his hand, hailing for rewinds, calling for more and eventually causing the set to massively overrun due to popular demand.

In the portable Pussy Parlour were Bristol’s new up and coming drum & bass act, Dr. Meaker.

Similar to the early days of EZ Rollers, Meaker hit all the right notes, playing live, soul drum & bass.

And how fitting to end such a weekend with Jeff Mills.

If there were sound restrictions in place there was no way of telling, as the mighty techno legend pummeled the hell out of the rig with floor-filling techno.

Pressing all the right buttons with the crowd, from what appeared to be his techno thrown on stage, there were no questions asked as to who was the festival headliner. All hail!

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