After a rainy 2012 festival damaged Hitchin Priory’s grounds, there was no festival in 2013. As the organisers failed to find an alternative venue. However, a change in ownership of the Priory led to a rethink and so the 2014 festival was back on.

I’ve blogged about this festival in the past and I’ve not been too complimentary about the music portion of it. Despite it’s grandiose title, the festival is a local venue. Most going along to have a day in the sun with their friends and families. So the majority of those attending come from the local area.

But this also extends to the bands.  With some stages heavily influenced by the local music scene (which in all honesty isn’t strong). The BBC Introducing stage draws it’s running order almost entirely from the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire area and most of the other stages feature local acts. To make maters worse, many acts are invited back time and time again and I do wonder if many acts are a ‘given’ simply because they know the organisers.

BBC Introducing stage featuring Kumaria

This years festival didn’t start well. For an increased price, the organisers had managed to avoid telling people that there was one less stage and therefore less music. It was quickly clear the new layout was detrimental to one of those stages. The ‘Church’ stage, which features quieter music had been moved nearer to the loudest stage. So there was a massive amount of sound leakage into this stage. It really didn’t require too much intelligence to work out there would be a problem. You don’t put quiet music next to loud music.

Too close for comfort

Why had it moved? Well, as I said, as much as the promoters say it’s a ‘world music’ festival, it’s not, it’s a ‘local’ festival and they’d decided to put a small stage in it’s place that was run by the local community and featured acts and activities entirely from the surrounding locality. I have to admit this is very laudable and should be encouraged and the stage was really well run and featured some great performances from some very young artists. But it shouldn’t undermine the main festival –  a festival which despite protestations, is getting expensive. With it now costing £30 for a weekend, there were cheaper ‘all-dayers’ in London featuring better bands.

The ‘local stage’

Susie Ro – okay voice. Nothing to write home about.

Kingston Inn – A substandard Mumford and Sons rip-off band.

Toque Tambor – a friend’s sambar band. Not really my cup of tea, but they were one of the better things to listen to.

Toque Tambor 

Ric Birtill – bland

Guido and the Hellcats – actually pretty decent 50s throwback band

Los Chicos Muertos – played before in a different (better) guise.

So day one was mostly awful. The music was in general bland and it really was slim pickings. It was so awful I questioned where to bother going on the Sunday despite having already bought my ticket. There were a number London gigs I could have gone to on the Saturday and I wondered if I should make better use of my Sunday by opting for some of London options. However I decided to give the festival the benefit of the doubt and decided to go and Sunday proved to be an improvement.

Alex Bay

Kelly Oliver

Nathan Watson and the Freakanomics – Enjoyable performance and a great voice

Laura Victoria – more breathy singing from Laura. Either sing or play the cello. Not both. 

Traitors – perform as they look. Seemed like a band who wouldn’t short change you. Nothing particularly interesting about the music. But they at least try to make it interesting.

The Old Dance School – meh

B3 Experience – cover version meh

Maharaja Blues – Fusion meh

Megson – ‘local’ band (fellow Teessiders). Cheesy meh

Delora – played before under a different guise. Sound more poppy than before

Delora

Moats – Decent performance.

Moats

Courtney Pine – Found the music to be completely uninteresting. Talented in the same way Clapton is talented yet soulless. This was the same. Sometimes music is better with rough edges.

Childhood – Good performance. Although musically nothing to write home about

Crazy World of Arthur Brown

Crazy World of Arthur Brown – Despite being 70, this guy still knows how to perform

Crazy World of Arthur Brown –  keyboard player

In general the quality of the second day was an improvement. It helped that Arthur Brown, despite his age, still puts on a great show which was well worth the price of the ticket. But also some of the other stages seemed to have a better selection of music. However, I don’t think the improved second day, is enough to encourage me to go back next year. I think I’ve outgrown this festival. 

Unfortunately, due to pressure for better policing of the event from local residents and businesses, the festival relocated to the grounds of Hitchin Priory, a conference and wedding venue. Previous years, the weather had been fine. So the Priory’s grounds were a great compromise location. However, this year the heavens opened.

It’s easy to say in hindsight that holding a festival in the beautiful grounds of a conference centre during a week of particularly heavy rain was a stupid thing to do. The grounds were bound to become mush and that’s exactly what happened. Except it didn’t require hindsight. It was obvious the whole week and most people were concerned it would have to be cancelled. So it didn’t have to go ahead.

The scene not long after the festival opened.

Unfortunately, Hitchin Priory have understandably decided that they will no longer host the event. At the end of the day, people who’ve booked their dream wedding in the grounds don’t expect to turn up to a site that’s turned into a muddy bath. As I said it was easy to say this in hindsight. But even on the day, the opening of the event was delayed by over 2 hours because they were having difficulty moving equipment around the site. That should have been the sign to cancel the event before the rest of the grounds were ruined.

To be honest, I tend to find the whole weekend a disappointment. I look forward to it for weeks on end. One of the charms of the original festival was the amount of music that challenged your pre-concieved ideas. Stages such as the Church meant that the organisers were able to schedule say cello music alongside noisier music because the were thick walls and distance between stages. But in a field, the acoustic music has been largely replaced by electrified guitars.

Now I like my electrified guitar music as much as the next man, but that wasn’t the point of this festival. With the change in venue, the balance was altered away from acoustic to electric. So unfortunately, there’s now three stages that effectively play heavily amplified music, an ‘eclectic semi-acoustic’ stage and the ‘church’ stage for everything else.

The line up this year was arguably pretty strong. The Damned were playing, along with JuJu (Robert Plant’s backing band from the gig the previous thursday) and there was some interesting music played. Unfortuantely, there was also a lot of dross on the ‘Introducing’ stage (basically teenage skater rock drawn from the local colleges), and also a large number of bands who seem to play every year, many good, but most are not ‘World’. It’s one thing putting up with the weather to see top-top bands, but it’s another thing to trudge through muddy fields to see local pub bands.

Which brings me to the central problem. The ‘identity’ of Rhythms of the World. As the name suggests, it’s meant to be a showcase of world influences. But if a large proportion of the bands are drawn from middle-class Hertfordshire, it’s hardly going to be very ‘World’. Personally, I think it’s time they closed the introducing stage and opened up another acoustic stage. If they want to continue with an ‘Introducing’ stage, then they need to find a way of having decent up and coming indie bands, not local college kids.

Next year, with the change of venue, hopefully it will give them a chance to rebalance the festival.

The Magic Tombolinos

Miss 600

RUTA

R.U.T.A

JuJu

JuJu

The Folk

I’m from Middlesbrough and both Middlesbrough and Stockton provide free festivals featuring known acts. This year Stockton’s Riverside Festival included British Sea Power, Human League, Mercury Rev, along with many up and coming acts and comedy acts. These festivals are organised and supported by the local councils and attract large crowds from outside of the towns.

ROTW used to be a free festival, based within Hitchin’s town centre. But unfortunately Hitchin is a posh southern market town full of middle-class families who, rather than controlling their kids, blamed the festival when their children got pissed during the festival weekend. So a few years ago, a decision was taken to move the festival to Hitchin Priory so that the it could be policed. Since the council doesn’t finance the festival, this meant a charge had to be introduced. Unfortunately the move in my opinion has had a detremental effect on the festival because this changed the nature of the festival and to be honest it also means the music has to justify the admission price, and this year there were slim pickings.

One problem the festival suffers from is an over familiarity of the acts, with many returning each year. Some of the local acts often aren’t good enough for such a large stage and the ‘introducing’ stage is full of ‘college bands’ playing skater rock, or bland indie. The ‘world’ aspect is often covered by white middle-aged middle-class people playing ‘ethnic’ music, or some so called ‘traditional’ north African band playing electric guitars, along with a few bands playing some sort of eastern european ‘roots’ music. This year in particular seemed to be devoid of world music. Some of the acts are just plain wrong – with one act in particular turning up each year with a different ‘world’ artist in tow. Maybe I’m just too cynical but I suspect that they’re not doing it to make people aware of different styles of music but use these artists as a means of touring summer festivals. This may sound harsh but I hate people who present themselves as ‘new age’, when instead they using other people to freeload.

I know this is sounding pretty scathing and it’s not meant to be, but I guess the point I’m making is that I no longer see an unique selling point. Afterall £14 is cheap for a two day festival, but once on-site you cannot leave and return without paying for re-admission, so you are reliant on the on-site concessions and it all starts to cost. Many people seem to turn up, find a stage and stay there and this leads to feeling that the event is overcrowded. In the town centre, this wasn’t a problem, people would move around and it never felt overcrowded and it was easy to drop into a shop or pub for food and drink. Although the organisation is really effective, hosting 6 stages in a big field means doesn’t have the same atmosphere as holding the events in different ‘nooks and crannies’ around Hitchin town centre and the new stage layout discourages unamplified music (they used to use Hitchin’s church for acoustic music – while the equivalent stage suffers badly from sound leakage). This year, with more and more bands selected who play music of ‘american’ origin (rock, blues, rap, country, ‘americana’), seemed to really lack the ‘world’ music that gave the town centre festival it’s fantastic mix. Unfortunately this year’s festival was more Radio 1/2 than Radio 3/6. Hopefully next year, they’ll find a way of restoring the balance.

Anyway highlights:

17 Hippies – excellent german band playing a wide-range of European styles

Trailer Trash Orchestra* – A country/rock sound with attitude

Dodge Brothers – Mark Kermode’s skiffle band

Rapides * – Rock and roll band

Bare Bone Boogie Band – Electric Blues

* Returning bands

Photos

Flickr Album

The Dealers – ‘Pick a bale of cotton’

The Dealers – Wondering

Etran Finataw

Rebel Control

Photos from the weekend