Lesterval

So as you're all aware there are lot of festivals going on these days.

Essentially what this means is that pretty much where ever you live in the country you can find a festival near you.

Usually they're tucked away somewhere just off a B road in what's normally described as "a secret location"

Now in Leggy we like to do things a little different, because of this our very own Festival; Summer Sundae is held not in a secret location but in a much more assessable place, Victoria Park in town.

This leads to some fairly interesting paradigms.

For example,

Camping.

See a lot of Leggy folk'll camp for the duration of the weekend. Even though 90% of them probably live less than half an hours drive from the site itself.

This might be less strange if the festival wasn't situated in a residential area and therefor is required by law to finish playing music at around 11pm.

I personally opted to stay in a house and a few other poets who where performing at the festival came along too.

I'm gunna talk a bit about the phrased and confused tent, host to the spoken word at Summer Sundae but before I do here's a couple of decent Leggy bands who played at the weekend.

These Furrows

photo by http://quayforever.blogspot.com

The Deap People

Phrased and Confused

These lot run the spoken word section at summer sundae but unlike other festivals they don't just book poets to fill slots. They actually commission 4 sets of Artists to create new work specifically for the festival.

Last year featured Andy Craven-Griffiths and this years line up played host to Sound of Rum.

I helped arrange accommodation for the Rums as they seem to be spending most of there summer sleeping in other peoples tents throughout various fields across the UK.

We also had Ross Sutherland and Tim Clare on separate occasions.

The highlight of the sleepovers for me was when Tim and Kate Tempest from the Sound of Rum got embroiled in a high paced poetry sleep off.

Kate took an early lead using the unconventional technique of synchronising her heart beat with that of the cat sleeping on her lap,

But Tim had been preparing for this match up over the previous 2 days and after what must have been literally tens of minutes Kate conceded leaving Tim to do a victory lap of the living room floor.