96. Ramblin’ Man Festival
Mote Park
25 and 26 July 2015
Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t do festivals. Not the outside ones, anyway. The entire premise feels like a behavioural experiment in how quickly society would unravel during the first 48 hours of a cataclysm. Ten thousand people crammed into a field with too few toilets, sketchy running water, and a black-market economy run by gluten-free burrito lords in tie-dye. It’s like Mad Max, but with more tote bags and fewer moral boundaries.
And the people? Middle-aged office workers in harem pants, trying to “find themselves” again after a week of spreadsheet hell. The vibes are part middle class, office party on Mescal, part Lord of the Flies. So no, festivals are not my thing.
And yet, Ramblin’ Man lured me in with a line-up that read like someone had rifled through my record collection without telling me. Classic rock, prog rock, blues rock… old rock, new rock, possibly even some fossilised rock. Plus, there was the added incentive of meeting up with a friend I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. So, despite all better instincts, I found myself heading to a field in Maidstone. Let history record this lapse in judgement.
Day one was a mixed bag. Haken and Pendragon brought the sort of gloriously silly prog-metal that sounded like it had been composed at a Dungeons & Dragons convention. Dreamtheater, a band who often sound like they’re trying to outplay each other in 11/8 time, delivered a bafflingly flat set. Camel, on the other hand, proved once again that a band named after a large desert mammal can still pack a melodic punch, and Anathema were unexpectedly superb, brooding, emotive, and just pretentious enough to be taken seriously.
Blue Öyster Cult rolled out “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” and were predictably heckled by 5,000 middle-aged men screaming “MORE COWBELL!” leaving them wondering why the hell they had agreed to come and play a festival in Kent to five thousand pissed Brits. I left before the Scorpions or Saxon could make their appearances, life is too short to spend an evening with bands that: (a) peaked whilst Thatcher was still in power; and (b) once wore leather studded codpieces with no trace of irony. I retreated home to the comforts of a real bed and indoor plumbing. Non-negotiable.
Day two began with a weather warning from my friend. It was already bucketing down in Maidstone by the time I arrived. I caved and bought an overpriced cowboy hat from the merch tent, which promptly began funnelling rainwater directly down the back of my neck like a malevolent irrigation system.
But the music, well, the music mostly salvaged the day. Rival Sons lit the place up with a blistering, full tilt set that felt equal parts revival meeting and exorcism. The Quireboys surprised everyone by roaring onstage like a runaway pub brawl in leather trousers, shaking the sodden crowd into collective cheer. Seasick Steve was all charm and banter and rusty slide guitar magic, and The Temperance Movement delivered exactly the sort of oddly limbed, shouty catharsis required when you’re soaked to your socks and reconsidering many of your life choices.
Only Gregg Allman failed to lift the spirits, offering a subdued headliner set that may have been technically sound but felt emotionally checked out, though that may have been me, projecting from the depths of my damp despair.
I left early. Again. A little older, a little wetter, and not even slightly more convinced by the whole outdoor music festival thing. If this is how humans behave when left in a field for 48 hours, then when the apocalypse finally does arrive, let the cockroaches have the planet. We’ve had our turn.