Bluedot 2023 - crowd shots
The weather Fuxked it - writes Daniel Pratley for Festival Flyer
The weather stole it and royally shafted the Bluedot staff, the punters and ultimately the atmosphere. For us, what Bluedot could have been and what it turned out to be are Chalk and Cheese. We endured, we enjoyed…but ultimately, we endured.
Taking a wider view, Bluedot occupies a solid and slightly peculiar position in the festival calendar, promoting science, and often spoddy, ground breaking and kooky acts. It’s kid friendly too, and when enveloped by the iconic Lovell Telescope the whole package appeals to a fun/family/socially conscious crowd. On paper, the festival clearly has its credentials stamped on the serious side but the line-up’s focus is frizzy and fun. We get satirical and scientific speakers and kooky headliners that occupy niche positions in society. It’s a splintered line-up of has-beens (Grace Jones), still are’s (Young Fathers), newbies (MadMadMad) and will be’s (Scalping), but ultimately the line-up is eclectic and flamboyant.
So…with big-boy intentions we set to carving out Friday. Django Django delivered the on-brand ‘Hale Bop’ in their typically confusing nebulous cowboy romp, and even Roisin Murphy, who we doubted had the headliners heft, seemed to transition to the situation perfectly. The relentless thwack of ploddy bongo’s and Roisin’s hypnotic stage-craft seemed to be perfectly paced for the crowd. The ‘time is now’ being mangled to a ketamine jog rather than its exuberant ecstasy of old. An unexpected highlight was Creep Show and the enigmatic John Grant. ‘Modern Parenting’ standing proud in a slumping LCD kind of way. Ending the night on the dreamy groove of Future Utopia and ‘Make it Home’ was a perfect partner to the tense robotics of Leftfield and ‘Afrika Shox’ and the dystopian rumblings of ‘Phat Planet’.
Whilst Friday was a fairly benign well faced affair, Saturday’s shit got real. And to be frank and just to be sure, Saturday’s shit started getting real during Friday night.
Saturday welcomed a sloppy soup of woodchip muddy goo and gleeful kids salivating at the prospect (they really do love those muddy puddles). The novelty dissipates quickly, and in no time the absurdity of trudging through stinking slop for two days kicked in. Bands cancel (Egyptian Blue – what happened?!!), stage-time openings delay and the festival is seemingly triaged whilst a recovery is explored.
But for many there is no recovery, the position is inevitable for 50% of this family crowd. The kids deteriorate swiftly, standing like zombies, fixed rigid with no grass to rest, wet, muddy and howling. For us, to top it off, there’s no escaping the hell of the inevitable ’car-tow-eye-tractor-pull’ out of the car-park; hence the remaining days adopt a slightly different proposition.
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