Squint and you could be in 1968 - although this lot are rather better dressed and healthier than most hippies. I did see a bumper sticker “The Hippies Were Right”. But though it seems retro, actually many here see this festival as a catalyst of an idealistic loved up eco friendly future.
As an old arty punk, I am naturally sceptical of anything that could be called New Age - the new religions with dodgy gurus, the bad music that only works in expensive spas, the over-priced somatic cacao weekends and the like.
But I keep being drawn back. Sure, there is some New Age nonsense but last time I met a wonderful brave Indian eco activist, called Vandana Shiva, taking on the might of Monsanto. Alastair Smith was here again, a real and effective sound healer (yes, this music healing thing is increasingly backed by proper scientists).
Actually, what persuaded me as much as anything was the strong involvement and endorsement of Sam Lee. Though he may hate me for saying this, he is hurtling towards National Treasure status, and just seems to getting more assured as a performer. For one venue The Nest, he curated musicians, had a late night open mike and there was wild dancing till the wee hours.
If some folk music (like some New Age) has cloying qualities, his arrangements often had some crunchy dissonance to add a necessary harsher quality. Sam did the work in his twenties, going round traveller families or traditional singers and selected and adapted the best of the them. You could see the power of folk as a Darwinian musical survival of the fittest - the best tunes lasted through the centuries.
There are little echoes in Sam’s performance (pictured left) you might expect, the clarity, literary hinterland and deep melancholy of Nick Drake, the huge immersion into traditional songs of a Martin Carthy, but I also found myself thinking of other English musical visionaries like Britten and Delius, with a slight dose of avant garde weird shit. Even when singing a Black spiritual number “Lay This Body Down” he brought out the existential weariness in an entirely fresh take.
Not all the music here you would like to listen to at home, but worked here - like Radhika Das, singing rousing mantras for the crowd to join in. The Brazilian Carioca Freitas I saw at the most charming venue, the Sacred Glade tucked in the woods managed to conjure a wonderful atmosphere of Allegria (translated usually and inadequately as happiness). He isn’t the greatest singer but his sometimes gruff vocals were gorgeously sweetened, Leonard Cohen-style, by a trio of women singers. His fanatical following seemed to be partly because he does Ayahuasca workshops and plenty of previous participants were in the crowd.
Some of the best music weren’t on the bill - I ran into a superb singer, Magali Onironautica, jamming on guitar with some mates by a café. But quite a few artists here are big in this world, like British-Portuguese singer Nessi Gomes - with multi-million Spotify hits singing some songs, to slightly caricature them, of female empowerment, working through the fear to an authentic self. The festival in general you could say is post-feminist - workshops about men’s development, too. Though there's no alcohol on sale here (which might put off many), there’s not a puritanical element - with unabashed naked swimming in the lake.
I randomly wandered into a couple of workshops, one on parenting the Inner Child - I realised my Inner Child sent me off the rails as a teenager to prevent me becoming a corporate suit type. Another was on ancestors - I found a jaunty image of my great grandfather Herbert the day after returning.
If there was an overall theme it was triumph over adversity, on several levels - the whole festival was brought off with aplomb in the face of water shortages, wildfire alerts, and nearly cancelled. So hats off to the organisers for pulling off this unique, inspiring event in trying circumstances.
