After a warm up party down our local woods the night before, we were up for a big Saturday night out. Exodus was on, but the decision was made to head down towards Guildford for a party being put on by Pineapple Tribe & Sabbitcal with a bit of help from POD as well. The Ambient Green Picnic free festival was being held on the Sunday in Guildford, and the system was due to help there in the morning, so this party was really a pre-festival party.

Leaving Reading around 11.30, we made it down to Guildford within half an hour - finding the site wasn't too bad, but we made a few wrong turns before finding the right country road. This country road had the steepest and longest hill I've ever had to drive up. We struggled to the top and turned down a side road, at the bottom of this road was a bloke standing in the verge directing traffic into a small entrance in the woods. This was another nightmare track, and as usual I grounded my car. Half a mile down the track and a few cars had parked up, the system had only just arrived itself, so they were busy putting it together, while we hung around. After half an hour or so, they managed to get the system up and running.

The party was in a wider section of the track, which made a good place for the party to take place. Nightstorm had setup opposite the speakers, and two soundsytem vans had blocked the entrance so no cars could drive across the dancefloor.

There was only one rig running throughout the night, the three systems combined their own speakers together, to give a nice, crisp and loud setup. A few lights made the setup complete, with an alien spaceship type light being most impressive - which really did look like a UFO when it was carried from one side of the rig to the other at one point. It was weird and I guess you kind of had to be there.

They started off with some chilled Techno, which evenutally built itself up to some decent dancable hard techno. Throughout the night they swapped DJ's between the two systems - with a few dodgy mixing skills coming to light. More and more people started appearing after 1am, you didn't really notice people turning up, as the system vans hid the temporary car park.

Going for a walk in the woods about 4am, we found a nice view point. A few of us watched the early stages of the sunrising over the South Down hills. A combination of light mist, red sky, and green fields filled the valleys, which stretched for miles. Times like this, when you can still hear the thumping beat of the soundsystem in the distance with not a single person in sight, are when I really appreciate outdoor parties.

Drum and bass was being played when we came back to the site, most people had sat down next to the various fires that had sprung up. A few people remained on the dancefloor as well. The soundsystem was due to help out at the Ambient Green Picnic free festival in Guildford, so they stopped at 8am. As they annonuced the last tune, I knew that everyone would disappear if there weren't any tunes on the go.... and as it was a bright sunny morning, and the festival in Guildford didn't start until 12 noon. I brought my car up to near the temporary dancefloor. I stuck on a wicked mixed Acid Trance CD I had with me, after a minute or so of the rig being switched off - now I have quite a loud system - not quite as loud as the rig, but the 50-60 people left didn't really want to leave just yet.

No-one was dancing in front of my car or anything, more of chilling next to the fires, listening - which was fine with me. A few of the general public rambled through the site, including one old bloke and his wife - who were disgusted that we were ruining their Sunday morning hike. Party organisers try their best to put the parties on in remote areas, but you always get a few people in the morning walk through. A couple of dog walkers, and a few horse riders - which I turned down the tunes for - came through the site as well. Quite amusing to see the looks on their faces.

I kept the tunes going until 11am, when the last people had left. We had a bit of Acid Tekno on as well, as well as a few chilled tunes towards the end. Eventually, about 11.15am we were the only people around, so we had a final tidy up of the site and made our way toward the festival in Guildford.

Nice friendly night out with the most amazing weather.

Bugs






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