The Moor Music Festival is rapidly approaching, with the festival kicking off its 3 day line-up on the 7th of August.
The Moor Music Festival, now in its fourth year, will be held at Addingham Moorside, near Ilkley in the rolling hills of West Yorkshire. The fiercely independent, grass-roots festival proudly billed as a festival by the people and for the people, strictly abhors any corporate sponsorship, unlike many other large music festivals occurring in UK and continental Europe.
Interestingly, the Moor Music Festival, voted “Best Festival 2006″ on the Leeds Music Forum, is as much about having a music festival that prides itself on catering to the Northern UK region and holds dear locality and community, in regards to showcasing bands from the Yorkshire and Northern regions as well as beyond. Last year’s festival had six marquees and over 100 bands on show – this year should be no different. And in true testament to keeping the festival’s grass-roots and authentic integrity intact, ticket sales are limited.
Three main stages will pump out live music and performances by already confirmed bands and DJs such as Sheffield five-piece The Long Blondes, Forward Russia, Tim Sheridan, dance phenomenon Utah Saints, Audiojack, Paul Woolford and Eddie Temple Morris. The remaining line-up this year will continue to be as diverse as ever, hosting a mixture of musical and visual talent including folk, rock, blues, electro, breaks, drum and bass, techno, house, indie, brit-pop, nu rave, old rave, hip hop, dubstep, reggae, dub, beatboxing and breakdancing. The event also has full camping grounds on site, and markets itself as a family-friendly environment with entertainment for everyone, such as baton twirling, fire eating, visuals, multi media, silent disco, film and cinema, art installations, comedy, cabaret, play activities and a kids’ activity tent with workshops building up to a lantern parade on the Saturday. A special interest VW enthusiast’s show and shine will also be held at the festival, with the show occurring on the Saturday. This incorporates the love of several of the organizers passion for Volkswagens, and they hope it to be a staple feature in the coming years of the festival.
In a recent April article by The Guardian, The Moor Music Festival, was listed as one of the top 20 up-and-coming British festivals. With increasing costs and things to consider for punters planning on making a pilgrimage to any of the behemoth UK festivals, Moor Music aims to cater for those disenfranchised and unhappy by the large corporate machine that so many of these entrenched festivals are becoming. To give you an idea of latest ticket pricing, entry to Glastonbury is now a whopping £155, Moor Music only £55. For other patrons, it’s the change in musical direction that has them looking elsewhere. Glastonbury, where audiences since 1970 (when the ticket price was £1, and included milk from the local farm in the price) have gathered to hear alternative and often independent music and at an affordable price, now costs a staggering £22 million to produce – with big name artists such as Jay-Z, Kings of Leon and The Verve fitting the 2008 bill. This most recent addition of America’s biggest (and blingest) rap act caused noticeable friction, with Liam Gallagher from Oasis being the first one to protest in the media, stating hip-hop should never be appearing at Glastonbury.
The 177,000 odd crowd is another pretty good reason causing many festival regulars to give Glastonbury a miss. Today there are smaller and potentially more hipper festivals all across the UK and in nearby Spain – where you can enjoy the music, food and other amenities at an affordable price, not to mention avoid the monsoon level rainfall and mud that Glastonbury is now so infamous for.
And lastly, perhaps Glastonbury, now syndicated onto TV and mass-produced onto DVD, available at any music retailer near you – perhaps this corporate drive has somewhat diluted the exclusivity of having actually been there and witnessed a memorable musical performance?
It appears that festivals the size of Glastonbury, have maybe grown too large. Some punters likely thinking that attendance at Glastonbury is more now a socio-political statement to have on your things-to-do list, a tick in the box for middle class, liberal twenty-somethings. But now it is dangerously nearing becoming a parody of itself at proclaiming itself to be still true to the things it once was.
Moor Music flies at the face of the largesse of such festivals, and not only in seeking to preserve its grass-roots, affordable festival experience, but the organizers of Moor Music choose to heavily promote green action and other environmental causes, with stalls at the event on climate change, third world development and other social issues. It makes sense to hear then that Moor Music started from humble beginnings; its organizers including, amongst others, a painter and decorator, a retired go-go dancer, an electrical engineer, a librarian, a teacher and a civil servant – but all sharing a common creative interest and love for people, community, fun and above all, music and entertainment.
Arts Hub spoke to John Drysdale, one of the key festival organizers of the Moor Music Festival. ‘There is certainly something that’s been very noticeable, at least this year anyway, in almost a backlash against the big festivals,’ said Drysdale. ‘Right from when we first got together with the idea of making Moor Music several years ago, we always said we would never want it to ever grow to be more than 5000 people. We’ll cap it at 4999 if we have to. We didn’t want it to be like a big festival, where you have to walk 5 miles to go see a band, you’re paying 5 pounds for a pint and you’re standing behind 50,000 other people. You end up having paid 120 pounds to go see someone on the big screen eventually, because they are so far away that you can’t even see them live on the stage. So we always wanted it to be that the last person, the furthest away in our festival crowd, was still close enough that he could look straight into the band members eyes.’
Another key ideal important to the Moor Music Festival is that the festival be conscious of its environmental impact. Thom Yorke announced while promoting Big Ask Europe in Brussels late February, that Radiohead didn’t sign on to Glastonbury this year due to being less than impressed with the sizeable environmental footprint being left in the wake of the major festival. ‘One of the conditions of our band carrying on touring is that we do everything we can to minimise our impact on the environment. That has included buying two lots of equipment and keeping one in Europe and one in America so we never have to fly our kit around the world again. Another big one is shipping stuff rather than flying it.’
Yorke continued, pointing out the lack of transport infrastructure for the big festival as being its major ecological downfall. ‘One of the interesting things we discovered is how people get to our big shows. A lot of the time people are driving with one or two people in a car and that’s an ecological disaster. What we’re trying to do now is only play in areas that have a public transport infrastructure in place. So that rules out Glastonbury for this year. Maybe we can work out a plan for the future.’
You will be pleased to know the Moor Music Festival has a well thought out travel network to get to the festival. For those taking a car, it is encouraged to car share, as car parking cost will directly reflect how many people are in the car! A full car of 4 people or more will get free parking. For public transport, it is easy to take the train. There are direct trains from Leeds to Ilkley that take about 20 minutes. From Ilkley station you should be able to pick-up a taxi without a problem. And if you want to take the bus, they run regularly from Ilkley to the festival area – with a little bit of walking necessary.
‘We are green-minded and community-minded and we do believe in accommodating such a platform where people can engage in such things,’ said Drysdale. ‘A festival in essence, is very hard to be green – you’re essentially building a small town in a field, having to use generators and what not. We very much have a green consciousness, as opposed to being totally green, as it is very difficult for any festival to proclaim itself totally green. We endorse fair trade, provide organic food and local produce, and all the stalls on offer we try to source at relatively low and affordable price. We actively encourage charities to play a part, and any local community groups are always welcome to come along and raise money for themselves, and we always let these people participate in the festival for free.’
With festivals in the UK numbering over 370 at last count, and many of the large festivals reporting lower than expected ticket sales, it shows there really is a market for the small to middle-tier home-grown festival. 2007 Moor Music performers iLiKETRAiNS recently relayed their praise of the festival to Resident Adviser magazine. ‘It was an undoubted highlight for us – a trip to the countryside, weather forecast-defying sunshine, the alluring smell of barbeques and not a corporate banner in sight. What more could you ask for? Oh yes, a fantastically eclectic selection of live music and the chance to catch up with old friends.’
Moor Music Festival 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008 – Saturday, August 9, 2008
High House Farm
Straight Lane
Ilkley, England (LS29 9JU)
www.moormusicfestival.co.uk
