Last weekend a group of us made a trip to Global Gathering 2006 – the UK’s biggest dance music festival.  Held in Stratford-upon-Avon over two days in July, the Long Marshton airfield plays host to thousands of visitors and some of the biggest names in dance music.  This year saw Judge Jules, Grove Armarda, Pete Tong, Tiesto, Fatboy Slim, Lisa Lashes, Eddie Haliwell, Paul Oakenfold, Eric Prydz, Michael Grey, the Audio Bullys, Daft Punk and many more entertaining everyone across several different venues.

Last Friday morning, 13 of us set off from Hereford to the GG site, picking our camping spot and setting up by early afternoon.  The airfield was split into 2 areas, the main arena – holding all the stages and the campsite.  The campsite was absolutely huge – but with over 30,000 people camping, I guess it had to be.  The Red campsite (nearest the arena) was so full you could barely walk between the tents; the Blue campsite was packed, but tents were not so crammed in.  Somehow we managed to arrange our tents in a circle, creating a rather large patch of grass in the middle.  Surprisingly, no one pitched a tent in this gap.

The arena was formed of several venue tents including a huge 10,000 capacity marquee called the “Electric” tent.  The biggest area however was given over to the Radio 1 Beach Stage – a humongous outdoor stage surrounded by tonnes of sand.  As always, the BBC successfully spread their branding around with huge Radio 1 logos all over the stage.

We spent the Friday evening jumping between several of the tents including the Radio 1 Beach, Global and Electric before settling in to watch Daft Punk on their first live set since 1999.  To be honest, I’ve never seen Daft Punk before whether it be live or recorded, but they were absolutely tremendous.  They certainly knew how to put on a show – really good music, and a fantastic light show.  At the time I thought this was the best performance I’ve ever seen.  I would have liked to have been to see Tiesto but unfortunately he clashed with Daft Punk – maybe next time!

On Saturday, the number of visitors more than doubled and the time the arena was open also doubled – instead of 5pm – 2am like on the Friday, this was 2pm – 6am… an all nighter!  We got to see some absolutely amazing acts throughout the night, but the highlight had to be Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim).  His DJ booth was suspended between 2 huge TV screens and put on one hell of a show.  His performance – in my opinion – surpassed Daft Punk – if that was even possible.

All in all, one hell of a weekend – roll on Global Gathering 2007.

Photos from the weekend are coming up soon.

Daibach