Photo: Veronika Moore
Being just an hour away from London makes Standon Calling one of the best located weekender festivals around, but even that can have its downsides. This tiny, intimate festival in back fields of Standon Lordship fills with themed paraphernalia and a diverse, if slightly up-market, festival crowd quite late on the Friday. No one feels the need to get the day off work with it being so close. As such early acts struggle with the low Friday turn-out and Your Twenties, We Were Promised Jet Packs and Everything Everything all lack in support.
Later on, as city types shrug off suits, don wellies and chow down gourmet Japanese food and lager, the ambience dramatically improves. The Whip pull off a samey main-stage set just a couple of days before they appear at Underage Festival. They’ve moved down much more of a dance-avenue since their rock-oriented beginnings, and newer material is slight on the vocal. Despite this, everyone’s still shouting out to hear the big single from three years ago, ‘Trash’. They play it at the end of the set, and you can’t help but wonder that they aren’t sick of the song.
Standon Calling is a boutique festival – big on themes and audience participation, and full of bespoke touches that make the whole thing feel like the garden party it once was. This year Standon embrace outer space, including the habitual dress-up competition on the Saturday, elaborate decorations throughout the site, themed speeches and spoken word. A huge planetarium shaped dome called the Apollo Stage plays host to VV Brown on Friday, with her non-offensive do-wop pop and crass cockney accent. Everyone piles in to see the spectacle, including a shock announcement. “I really need a poo,” VV confesses, before launching into her own lyrically miserable take on ‘Monster Mash’, ‘Crying Blood’.
The Rumble Strips follow, hot on the heels of their new album ‘Welcome To The Walk Alone’. Mark Ronson’s production handiwork rings through their set in bright and splashy indie chimes, especially in the massive chorus of ‘Not The Only Person’. Meanwhile, in the smaller Galileo tent, Mumford And Sons purport a little more subtlety. They throw a trumpeter into the mix for some brawny part-harmony folk that has everyone jigging on the hessian floor. Their music is made for the countryfolk watching, and likewise, Mumford And Sons love the festival. “We have to go back to London after this, there’s a car waiting for us,” frontman Marcus announces, dismayed. “But we love it here! It’s an amazing place, if we pass a cup round, maybe we could raise enough money to get a taxi in the morning?”
The rest of us don’t need to worry so much about waiting cars, we’ve got tents pitched a few feet away (and at Standon, it really is just a few feet to the campsite). We amble off instead to catch a lacklustre Ladytron set on the mainstage before hitting Barbarella’s, aka the cowshed. A Standon highlight, the corrugated iron cowshed is completely transformed for the festival, featuring all manner of space-age decorations, a hay-strewn open-air dancefloor and some big DJ names. It’s a revelation and a rave, and we stay until dawn dancing to the choice tunes of the Crystal Fighters DJs.
