Snowden: Storms, Wind, Rainbows and Buffalos

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Darkness formed around me. Like an apocalyptic vision, the late afternoon sunshine faded and great, black, mountainous clouds grew above. The clouds swirled and expanded until, in one great release, a single streak of lightning launched itself to the ground, hopefully smiting some layabout who happened to be stealing lead from a church roof at the time. I felt, just for a few seconds, that I was in hell. This had nothing to do with the weather above me, of course, but the fact that I was in a traffic jam on the M6 motorway. Luckily, the traffic soon cleared and I was on my way to a converted church in Alvechurch, where I was meeting Lyndsey before heading out to Napton Festival. The black clouds and lightning didn’t bode well for a music festival, but as long as the heavy rain held off until we had pitched the tent, we could probably make do. Of course, if the rain could hold off until, say, Sunday night, that would be ideal, as much of the weekend would almost certainly be spent outdoors, and though a bit of rain never hurt anyone, a lot of it might lead to drowning, hypothermia or extreme sogginess.

Napton was never on the schedule for this weekend; a day trip to Snowdon was what the music chose for us. Long after we had arranged our trip for Sunday, though, Lyndsey drove past a small sign in Leamington Spa that had the words ‘Napton Festival’, and perhaps more importantly, ‘The Bluetones’. The Bluetones have been a favourite of mine since they arrived in a whirl of happiness and perfect harmonies, back in 1995, and the sad news that, after being virtually ignored for more than a decade, they were splitting up after this, their final tour, convinced me that we needed to go to Napton. Better still, with Snowdon arranged for Sunday, and the festival spanning Friday evening and all day Saturday, the entire festival fitted perfectly into that little gap between work and tall hills. Once more, the music had guided us, and we responded as you would expect.

As we arrived in Napton, we saw a man with long, greasy hair and a cowboy hat walking down a country lane with a can of cider in his hand, and we knew we must be in the right place. We followed the festival signs, most of which looked they had been printed off a local school’s printer, and were less sure that we were in the right place when we arrived at a barn. Behind the barn though, was a big field, and the locals were using a Massey Ferguson as a makeshift ticket booth. Thinking that the place may have been full given that we were moving into early evening when we arrived, I was surprised to find around ten tents and a lot of open field in the camping area. Better still, the campsite was right at the top of a hill and looked straight down at the stage, so I suggested that we set up camp at the very top so that we could watch the music from the tent if we wanted to. Lyndsey was less convinced due to the winds that threatened to blow our tent to Coventry if we weren’t careful, but an extra tent’s worth of pegs came in useful and after a bit of a windy struggle, we were confident that the tent was up and going nowhere.

The bad weather of Walsall appeared to have petered out, and though there was rain in the air, only the odd spot actually fell, and with the occasional speck of sun poking out through the clouds, the site was blessed with a rainbow for much of the evening. With the tent up and the first can of ale merrily making ripples in my stomach, we headed down to the main arena. ‘Arena’ is probably not the best word for it, because Napton is no Glastonbury; there was one small stage, a few burger vans and an open field. After ten years of watching festivals become increasingly popular, overcrowded and full of music that you are sick of hearing due to the average radio station’s 10-track ‘A-List’, Napton was a breath of fresh air.

What Napton did have, and I’m pretty sure that Glastonbury, for all its variety, probably didn’t, was a tent that sold Napton Buffalo Burgers. Better still, the sign outside told us that we would get free cheese and onions with our buffalo. It was a choice between this and noodles so there was never really any doubt as to where we were going for food. The burgers tasted slightly like beef burgers, to be honest, albeit the kind that you might get from your local butcher rather than the economy versions from the local supermarket, and while the cheese and onions perfectly complemented it, I’m glad I didn’t overrun it with sauce like I would the economy burger, because this thing actually had flavour.

With the excitement of the burger out of the way, we sampled the local ales of the beer tent and focussed on the music. As expected for a festival of this size, all of Friday’s bands were local. Most of them played covers, a little bit of funk here, a smattering of punk there, and the evening’s headliners, The Ripps, played their own songs with a poppy-punky influence. The Friday evening crowd seemed to be largely ageing hippies, the kind of people who went to Reading Festival 30 years ago but were now reliving their youth without the hassle of the crowds. In short, they were probably the kind of people I will end up like in another 20 years. In between these though, there were plenty of people in their late twenties and early thirties, who had clearly made a weekend of reminiscing the 90’s, looking forward to the promise of The Bluetones and a Stone Roses tribute band the next day. One of the younger festival goers spent much of the night excitedly going round telling everyone that there was a massive party going on at the top of the hill later. As we followed his over-excited waggling finger up the hill, we saw one tent: our own. Had we been elected as the after-hours hosts for the weekend or had this slightly drunk man with multi-coloured hair somehow lost his sense of direction?

Between the bands, the music was clearly aimed at building up the 90’s hysteria, and once The Ripps called an end to the evening, the loudspeakers kept the party going until the bar closed, around midnight. As we headed back to our tent, those that hadn’t already collapsed after realising that they couldn’t drink as much as they could 30 years ago followed us. More than once, we heard the phrase ‘So, where’s the party?’ but multi-coloured hair man and his ageing followers were nowhere to be seen.

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