Tales
of the Jackalope
Tales
Of The Jackalope comes with the hidden tagline – ‘The
Londoner’s weekend in the country’. Okay, amidst the
rain of projectiles, I’m not trying to exclude any non-Londoners
in attendance. But you have to admit a Vice magazine and My Beautiful
City party, with half of the line-up regularly appearing at the
Old Blue Last… well I never, Jackalope succeeded in attracting
punters from the holy trinity of Dalston, Stoke Newington and
Hackney. Actually, casting my tattered mind back, scrap that,
it attracted those who intend to get messy, full stop.
With Jackalope
being initially billed as a 12pm Saturday to 12pm Sunday shindig,
in the grounds of a county hall in South Derbyshire, with pub-like
drinks prices and over 60 hot-vintage (Misfits), modern (The New
Young Pony Club) and in-between (The Pipettes) acts, the peeps
were excited.
However, in this forum-frenzy world, I’ll clear up a few
discrepancies which seemed to irk a few blog-happy punters - I’ll
address them now.
12 – 12 was a bit of a misnomer, at around 6am everything
started to shut down and the hordes retreated to their cars, tents,
or random logs that were scattered around the site. Beers were
£4, which isn’t too bad I guess and it might have
been on the grounds of a county estate, but it wasn’t like
there was a manor in the festival foreground. And one major disappointment
was that Ed Banger records Justice
and Busy P didn’t
close the night/morning. That would have been a killer way to
end the show, but whatever, a fun and debauched time was had by
all.
The first
DJ I saw was friend and cohort J.
Santil, who was playing four sets throughout the
event. His dirty, electro-boompty bump was an excellent choice
as music to (funnily enough) sit down and chill too, it’s
all about those Citizen tracks. I’ve got
to point out that the atmosphere rocked, wherever you went people
were happy, and DJs capitalised on all the smiley bods, wandering
from tent to tent.
I caught the end of the Pipettes’
set which, with their amiable 60s swing they drew a large crowd
relatively early on in the day. To tell you the truth, this is
where memories turned a little hazy as the intoxicants and sunshine
slowly took its toll. But, what I can do is pin-point some highlights
which should piece together the remaining 12 hours.
New
Young Pony Club rocked it, as did the
Misfits. I’m sure the iconic punk band were
a highlight for most.
Guitar/rave darlings, Klaxons
were around 45 minutes late and it was evident the crowd were
getting agitated. At one point someone next to me screamed, “The
mob will rule!” Soon after they [Klaxons] stormed the stage
and rattled through, (in the words of a non Klaxon fan) an ‘almighty
din’ of a set.
Joe Ransom and Killa
Kela rocked the Carhartt
tent to its knees with a proper party jump off - unadulterated
bounce. 2manyDJs threw down a heavy, scuzzy electro set and ultimately
sent the crowd wild.
Special shouts must go out to the DJs in the Moroccan themed bar/tent.
During the day, the tastiest funk and soul treats got people dancing
all crazy like Patrick Swayze. This soon morphed into breaks and
ended with a full on house extravaganza where the bar staff clambered
on top of the bar to join everyone else in the spazmo fun.
Extra special mentions have to go to the prolific on-site pen
tattooist (never has the word ‘cunt’ had more scrawled
exposure), the tall dude in a full, white, vintage Adidas Germany
suit who danced like a loon and of course, all the smiley strangers
who called me lovely and gave me kisses. It’s safe to say
a mighty fun time was had by all.
by TNT
