13 August 2010 (gig)
06 September 2010
13th-15th August 2010
So what to expect; 5 glorious decades of British cool, celebrating all that is great and good about Britain, spanning music, fashion, film, art & design - a unique festival, carefully curated by Wayne and Geraldine Hemingway; so much promise and hype, I went for the weekend and this is what I thought:
The camping: there was a standard range of offerings on this small site on the Goodwood Estate. Small pitches, Tangerine Fields, Glamping, teepees, gypsy caravans; everything you would expect from a boutique festival. Spacious spot found and tent pitched we headed on in. A promising walk through a small wooded glade towards the entrance, with a make a shift stage and lots of back to nature crafts, and we're through the wooden arched entrance. Billed as 'The Festival our Our Lives' VAG has a lot to live up to, this is it's first year, so let's see how we got on- Greeting us are a whole host of vintage cars; all around the site are beautiful cars, caravans, bikes and mopeds grouped by decade. Looking slightly like they've been abandoned by their owners, but great for posing for photos with.
The much-hyped 'High Street' follows on, with pop-up shops from Oxfam, John Lewis and Body Shop amongst others, useful when sheltering from the sporadic rain showers blighting the weekend and not a lot else. There was a Festival of Britain pub, which seemed a somewhat out of place theming next to the mass consumerism offered on the rest of the 'High Street'.
Other attractions over the weekend were a roller disco, an 80's warehouse party, a Butlin's holiday camp for keeping the kids entertained while the adults were quaffing champagne; only available by the bottle I might add. Art exhibitions predicting future vintage items; Crocs and the Yellow Pages etc. Bonhams heaved a whole host of worthy antiques down to VAG - signed guitars, vintage furniture and computer games all ready to go under the hammer. There was a fashion show space where Lily Allen was supposed to be launching her new vintage range - but the shows were 'sold out' straight away and nothing much was heard about it. A classic car boot sale was cancelled due to there not being enough takers, smaller stalls were squashed in, either side of the High Street, with vintage wears, clothes and handmade fashions on sale.
The festival going crowd were either die-hard vintage fanatics, who clearly lived and breathed their chosen era (I wonder how they felt about Primark sponsoring the Style Studio) or recreational vintage followers - 50's polka dots or 40's tea dresses were the outfit of choice for many, albeit with wellies for a lot of the time.
Musically, the highlights were Faces, featuring original members Ronnie Wood, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan, plus Glen Matlock, and vocals from Mick Hucknall. Hucknall delivered a superb performance, sounding on par with Rod Stewart.
The Noisettes drew a large crowd on Saturday night as talented singer/bassist Shingai Shoniwa tore through hits. Other highlights were The Rezillos, The Wailers, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, The Bees, not forgetting the legendary Danny Rampling down in the 80s warehouse. There was a real mixed bag of tastes musically and some great DJs for some after hours dancing.
All in all VAG had the essence of being a wonderful and unique festival. But it was overhyped and ultimately couldn't fulfill its wishes of being 'The Festival of Our Lives'. It was more commercial, more expensive and not as thoughtful as it could or should have been.
Photo credit: Louise Franey-Patel
