theartsdesk at the Secret Garden Party

After a manic B-road wriggle to avoid traffic that was at a standstill I arrived in glorious sunshine, gazing benignly down on rolling green English fields, complimented by a lake and river. Secret Garden is undoubtedly one of the best settings for a festival I have ever seen.

Within its boundaries for four days, 24 hour party people meet in a bubble of Bohemia found, surprisingly, just the other side of Huntingdon. Who’d have thought it?

There is an eccentric mix of entertainment, with every taste catered for, much of the action concentrated around a grass bank walkway that starts at The Great Stage’s hollow and stretches towards the far end of the lake. Down from here, on each side, are the other larger arenas, Feast of Fools, Temple of Boom, The Drop, and Where The Wild Things Are. This allows the discerning music junkie to sample an array of temptation and the lazier ones to sit back and enjoy the view from an elevated position.

As ever with decent sized festivals, I was only able to take a taster of the events, but highlights included Morcheeba who were at the top of their game, clearly enjoying the occasion, working up the crowd ready for a full on Saturday night, and The Correspondents drew one of the largest crowds of the weekend, whipping the folk at The Great Stage into a frenzy, culminating in an superb stage dive which eventually resulted in Mr Bruce, still singing, being delivered safely back to his platform for some more hectic dance moves. Alabama 3 put on a good show although their humour seemed somewhat lost on the crowd. Carlos & Choci played Feast of Fools on Sunday plying a solid Chicago house and acid Session, as did the The Inexplicables over at The Artful Badger Wood.

Music aside, some of the biggest fun to be had was from the fireworks on Saturday night, setting the sky ablaze, and also the juvenile but excellent paint fight on Sunday, a day that ended with the spectacular Big Burn, a gigantic combustion – everyone loves a bonfire, after all Other enjoyable little extras included two Spitfires (or similar) overflying the festival at various points, including a night pass where the aircraft were lit up and spitting fire. They created sky art from their trails, including a love heart and a cock and balls!

Also worth a mention are Little Dragon, Tourist, Matrix and Future Bound & Subfocus, the latter laying down hectic drum & bass sounds, a fantastic juggling/strong man act by an Australian couple, the endlessly fascinating Zorbing and an educational session at Guerilla Science which told me more about alternative animal mating habits than, perhaps, I need to know.

One alarming development on the rise was a new trend in men’s fashion that I can’t say I approve of. They are called Menings, and involve otherwise sane guys dressing up in brightly coloured tights that are pulled far too far up or left with the crotch somewhere around the knees, not very pleasing to look at in either incarnation.

Happily, 2014 has been blessed with perfect festival weather, blazing hot long sunny days with cool hazy starts, allowing revellers a few hours rest each morning without the sweaty unpleasantness of refried brains in overcooked tents. But where it really all kicked off was in the hours between two and six in the morning. Everyone went wild and the brakes were most definitely off. It was a great time to stumble around from stage to stage, picking up the vibe from each, and snatching conversations with blissed up people - “I almost came as a unicorn”, “If they finish earlier on Sunday we just have to start earlier too”, “Three hours ago you were sobbing on the carpet - how can you be OK now?” That said, I never did quite manage to see the dawn, but Secret Garden is a fine, fun, friendly festival to be commended on all fronts.