Heavy Discipline

Strawberry Fair 2005
by dizzzee

pictures by Mike, for more go here
except princess drive's, by Rosey

 
Strawberry Fair is the annual Cambridge mini-Glastonbury, complete with hippies, townies, rastas, students, mexican gymnasts and plain clothes policemen.  It looks like a shithole from the outside (if you were a visiting American tourist or ignorant posho student you'd probably think a huge refugee camp had been set up in the middle of the town center), but, more importantly, there are five different music tents for your new favourite bands to perform to a crowd of stoned hippies (in the interests of community relations, the police virtually decriminalise cannabis for the day), including a gift from Jah- the reggae tent.

Badwell Ash were my first band of the day, on the east stage.  It was a pretty unremarkable set, with nothing really happening, save their hurling of loads of Jelly Babies into the crowd, which was probably designed to further arouse a already rabid audience, but only served to wake a few people up from their drone rock induced naps.  By virtue of their age, teenage bands often have loads of appealing qualities (unprententious, motivated and ambitious) but Badwell Ash seemed to have bypassed the fire in the belly stage and consciously matured, both musically and emotionally, into a genuine adult rock band.  But they're young enough to do what the hell they want, and any number of average to fair rock songs aren't gonna prevent me saying they could go and support U2 anytime they want if they pull their socks up and their short trousers down.

With seeming unnecessary things for a tent on a hot summers day (such as ventilation) ignored, and the essentials (weed and natty dreads) embraced as you would a cuddly teddy bear, smoke hung in the reggae tent air like a shit three nuns joke at a Mayfair dinner party.  After a few choice dub cuts from djs Ashanti Sound, DJ Crispy led out Word Association, the Cambs/London hip-hop crew.  Obviously not suffering from the gangster chromosome, and thankfully not attempting to romanticise 'street life' beyond what befits reality, their vocal flow was so smooth you couldn't pick out the rhymes; they just went beyond words, into another language completely (as we were in hippy territory, I'm gonna have to call it 'the language of the soul').  And when 'Na-Na-Naa-Naaaa' is your set closer, fuck mono-liguism, let alone bi-linguism.  No wonder nobody learnt Esperanto.

Leaving the reggae tent for the future tent was like giving up cigarettes; requiring huge amounts of mental strength, but far easier on the lungs afterwards.  And when the next band you see is Princess Drive, you wonder why people need nicotine patches altogether.  If the reggae tent was a marijuana experience, theirs was a speed and crack cocaine cocktail- instant, fuzzy, nasty and unpredictable.  But fun.  And although this band didn't need drugs (unlike the teenagers stood near me), with enough natural mind altering hormones flowing through their skinny 17 year old veins to last Pete Doherty a few hours driving them on, they made a huge impact.  Scissor kicks came and went, as did star jumps, shape throwing and eventually falling over, meaning they seem to be developing the stage presence necessary for their punk and roll anti-thems.  Go here now for some PD related kicks.  Apparently important media chaps were there to see them, but I doubt they were impressed, people like that never are.

After a trip back to the reggae tent for the Trojan Sound Crew's fine styles, I skipped across the fields' numerous cow-pats to the east stage and caught The Kill Freeman Faculty.  Although I'm never one normally to enjoy the primal thrills of grungy metal (a sphere solely inhabited by bald middle aged adolescents with questionable taste in beards, and the ghost of John Peel), I'm gonna grudgingly have to admit that they were actually pretty good.  Don't take my reluctance as some kind of inverted indie 'fuck it if its not cool' snobbery, far from it, I just don't like metal pretty much full stop.  Whilst it's always the last thing that matters in a band, they were all 'competent musicians' and changed time signatures in the right places without fucking up blah blah blah.  Though it sickens me to say it, they were probably better than all our teenage rock and roll idols put together.  But I'm sure I'll have to add that outburst to the 'things I've regretted saying in the morning' list, and I've already got a horrible taste in my mouth.
 
Staying put at the east stage, Inja and the Delegates Of Culture seemed to bring the whole of Arbury with them, which scared off all the metalheads.  Within a few minutes, the crowd resembled more an 8 Mile scene than the hairy bus stop queue it had been minutes before.  Everyone did the whole waving their arms in the air and bouncing thing that seems ridiculous when you see Will Smith doing it on top of the pops, but makes absolute sense in the heat of a sweaty hip-hop show, as how else are you gonna dance in a jammed front row? (You dig that rhyme there?).  I've got one of their EPs, but their intellectual old-school approach on record gives way live, for goofy stage antics and jumping around: more GLC than Watts Prophets or Last Poets.  Anyway, apart from a bald chap who couldn't rap for a NYC baseball cap and some 3 carrot gold bling, they did you over like a prize street fighter, working your head, liver, and then your groin.  And when the rhymes froze for an eight bar air DJ break on invisible turntables, you know Jam Master Jay isn't dead (in a creative sense anyway).
 
Dead musicians aren't a lot of help to anyone on stage, but thats okay for Hawkwind (or Space Ritual as they now call themselves) as they're the living dead, leftovers from the hippy days we'd all rather forget about and they'd rather we remember.  They closed the east stage in front of a huge crowd.  But were still crap.  Back to the reggae tent then.

When reggae is good, its superior to every other music form.  It carries the soul of a people who have been fucked over by our scummy English past with hope and pride and all the other genuine righteous emotions that being the top of the international food chain for so long has destroyed in 'white' music (you can't generalise anything with a colour, but some music is so fucking white it'll stand out in a snowstorm for being too pale).  It's the voice of a pure and humble existence dedicated to their one religion that isn't bullshit.  And The Universal Players' live roots brought the whole tent, black and white and everything inbetween, into union over their universal truths of live on planet earth.  Respect yourself and everyone else.  Peace is better than war.  Love is better than hate.  Believe in Jah and he will deliver you from the wicked man.  It's mesmerising.  You can't help but dance and agree.  The bass is for your heart and the singing for your head.  And the band were perfect.  The guitarist would offer a facial expression for each note he played; he'd O his mouth for each off beat, and mimic a squeal for each solo.  It was like his worldview was so inclusive he was miming for the benefit of any deaf people in the tent.

If I've ever had any faith that humanity is capable of good (that inherently, people don't = shit), then the reggae definitely reinstalled it in me.  It didn't take long for god to undo Jah's work though.  On the late bus home there were some nazis (yes, complete with swastika tattoos, and yes, they were showing off to all the underage teenage girls), who spent the journey chanting 'white power white powder white power white powder'.  I know racism has wider issues, and sometimes you just can't be fucked to deal with such twats, but it ruined the whole day for me. It's fucking pathetic.  Give it up.

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