So as most of you know Global Gathering is without a doubt the best and largest dance festival on the planet. When Global Gathering is on, you can pretty much say that there are no big name DJs anywhere else in the world at the same time. With huge names such as Basement Jaxx, Faithless, Carl Cox, Paul Van Dyk, Roger Sanchez, Armin Van Buuren, Pete Tong, Annie Mac, Erick Morillo, David Guetta, James Zabiela, Nic Fanciulli, Steve Lawler, Paul Oakenfold, Booka Shade, John Digweed Eric Prydz, Sander Kleinenberg, Mark Knight, Armand Van Helden, Steve Angello & Sebastian Ingrosso, Fedde Le Grand, Scratch Perverts, Sasha, Ferry Corsten, Calvin Harris, 2ManyDJs and many, many more (click here for the official list).
If you’re into dance music there is bound to be something for you and in fact the main problem is often there are two or more people you want to see playing at the same time because there are so many tents and stages all playing at once.
If you’re in the UK and into the scene, then you kind of have to go at least once to experience it. So my sister, her boyfriend and my bro headed out for the event. My bro didn’t know he was going till a couple days before as we gave him the ticket as a surprise for his bday 🙂
Stratford-upon-avon is where it is held and it was kind of effected by the the huge floods, but the event is on a ex-Airfield and is not built on a flood plane, so nothing was going to be under water like some parts of the UK. Either way, on any grassed surface that has had large amounts of rain, when you get 50,000 people walking through it, you are bound to get mud, mud, mud and lots of it. We tippy toed around for the first little while trying to avoid all of the mud. After about an hour we found out someone was selling gum boots (or wellingtons as they call them here), we knew we were gonna pay for convenience and we did a bit, they were £20 (~AUD$48 ouch!).
Eitherway, they were more than worth there money, as we were then free to roam through the mud to our hearts content. By the end of the night there was so much mud and so many liquid mud pools, the boots paid for themselves many times over. Some crazies were wrestling in the mud and some even sliding in the mud (see my youtube video at the end of this post).
It lightly rained for probably most of the event (2pm till 6am). This definitely stopped it from being a fabulous day but that can always happen with outdoor events.
As for the music, I was most disappointed because the people I wanted to see (Calvin Harris, Bookashade, Faithless and some other house acts) were all on the Friday and we were only going for the Saturday cause of work. Putting that aside we kind of spent most of the night chatting and socialising. We mainly saw Steve Lawler and Armin Van Buuren. Armin has been good to me in the past and was definitely good this time round. He dropped some absolutely fantastic classic anthems e.g Bedrock – Heaven Scent, Energy 52 – Cafe Del Mar and 3 drives on a vinyl – Greece 2000. Heaven Scent sent the crowd wild and I like the rest love that track immensely.
Another cool addition to the event was a 15 minute show of the red arrows over the top of the main stage. As to be expected, they were awesome and pulled off some unreal stunts and low fly overs of the main stage. See below for a video I took of them above the main stage.
To see the rest of the photos from the event, visit the below link:
http://www.gabnation.com/albums/2007/globalgathering/
The Red Arrows:
[YouTube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8kT38JUZOQ[/YouTube]
Slip sliding away (I don’t know how this guy didn’t get Pneumonia):
[YouTube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFfdgo0IEV4[/YouTube]
You look great in a set of wellingtons mate! giuls doesnt look to be enjoying them as much tho!
The whole place would of been a massive mud pit by the end of the festival. Did you guys manage to stay on your feet the whole time? or did one you guys fall over? I bet ness would’ve fallen over in that 🙂 hey i probly woulda got blind and fallen over too! 😉
Dunno if you’ll check this out before you guys come back… but it’s been a good system for us to check out what you guys are up to. I am thankful that you guys take the time to write up what you are doing and where you’ve been.
I expect a blog entry for your arrival home! 🙂
check yas later
Jas
A few times we nearly came to slipping over. Most times I tried to go near a fence to hold on to. There was some parts of the mud that was really gooey and you had to you muscle to pull your wellie out of the mud and some that was just liquid mud. Luckily none of us fell in otherwise it would of sucked big time.
Giulio had a great time he just doesn’t like smiling in front of cameras, he always tries to pull a face.
Of course we’d see your post before then. We get an email when someone posts a comment 🙂
It’s good to hear some appreciates the blog and all the time and effort we put into Gabnation.
Enjoy.