We come to party! (Ericsson Homelands (Winchester))

Member Name: Science

Product:	Ericsson Homelands (Winchester)
Date:	29/06/01 (122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good Music

Disadvantages: Few Live Acts

My previous experience of Homelands involed rain, mud, torn ligaments and the loss of my wallet. It may be hard to believe that so much dark luck could befall one person in one day but unless I was suffering from the unreality of fungus, the gods of misfortune were happily proding me with their big toes. So when the opportunity arose to head back down to Winchester for Ericsson's Homelands 2001 my immediate reaction was cold sweat and shakes as I sat in the corner rocking back and forth.

This time however I was determined to have incident free good time, and with a line up including Orbital, Danny Tenaglia, Sasha and arenas provided by The End, Radio One, Movement, Space, Back2Basics and Slinky, incident-free seemed rather far fetched.

As we departed Waterloo by train things were looking pretty good, I had a cold beer in my hand, the sun was shining and all my valuables were now safely in the possesion of a trusted and more responsible friend. ON arrival in Winchester all festival-goers were hearded down specific routes, through the "drugs amnesty"(was that 4 pills or less and you can keep them or was that just not go to jail for 4 years or more? much confusion), eventually onto buses which took us the short journey to the site, or so we thought.

After the initial excitement of getting of the bus at our destination we were then confronted with a very long uphill walk to the actual site, and very pleasant it was too, though slight flashbacks of knee ligament damage occasionally sents the cold shakes through my body.

Once we sqeezed through the entrance my fear and scepticism died away almost immediately. After collecting a cold alcoholic beverage from the bar we headed for the nearest sounds we could find, which manifested themselves in the shape of Norman Jay and the Bud Ice bus, excellently positioned right next to the entrance (after the long journey we were in no mood to get the "lay of the lan
d", we come to party!). I am a die hard fan of Norman Jay and the Good Times soundsystem at Notting Hill Carnival and with the sun shining down and people dancing outdoors that familiar summer vibe took hold for the first time this year. With the departure of Norman Jay the temperature was raised ever so slightly with a DJ set from Groove Armada, slipping from funky hip-hop fused beats into cool deliberate house fuelled grooves. While jumping around like kids we bumped into old friends and aquaintances, the kind that you only bump into at festivals and house parties and after enough time had passed that we thought we were in the swing of things we moved on to check out some of the tents.

The main homelands tent was nothing short of vast, with a superb soundsystem and visuals which with the exception of Orbital seemed wasted on the average line up which included Pulp, DJ Spoony, and Seb Fontaine.

Moving around we came across the Space tent. The club in Ibiza (at least the Terrace) can honestly put itself forward for best club on the planet, however tranporting that vibe, sound and atmosfear over to a large tent in Hampshire prooved little too tricky. The sound was very disappointing, it was pitch black and not on the right level at all.

So on to the next tent and drum and bass was the order of the day, though the sound again was disappointing, the vibe and the music was fantastic and after boogying around
for a hour or so we moved on to find The End arena banging out quality progressive sounds to a totally entranced crowd.

While collecting some more beer we passed the Radio One stage which seemed to be laying down trance anthems to the masses though not really being my thing we passed and headed for the main arena and Orbital. All the times I have seen the Hartnoll brothers over the years I have been entertained and inspired. They manipulate sounds, images and the crowd with such ease it makes you wonder how th
ey learnt how to push the right buttons. The visuals were superb and while their set was a little more relaxed than normal the long encore littered with classics such and Chime, Satan and their Doctor Who theme left me and the crowd screaming for more.

By the time we made it out after Orbital the sun had gone down, it was a little colder and the choice of where to go left us a little silent. What could possibly follow Orbital? Danny Tenaglia maybe? Though going back stage seemed like a bit of a cheat, we had missed Tenaglia's listed set and a five our set back stage was too much to pass up. So off we went to dance the night away with sexy deep house grooves and pints and pints of beer, though I do not quite remember getting back to Waterloo I am assured it was smooth and incident free, the same can not be said though of friends who had driven. After forgetting where their car was parked (next to the red sierra!) the large non- moving queue to get out tested sunday morning patience.

All in all though my Homelands fears have been blown away by good music and a fairly well organised festival, 2002? I'll be waiting.

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