The DGWGO Review for the hottest new festival to hit the Dumfries and Galloway Music scene ‘ Electric Fields ‘ !
Electric Fields is a new festival that has risen from the ashes of another ‘Comlongon Rocks’ , Still held within the grounds of a castle in D&G like its predecessor , this time being the Wonderful Drumlanrig Castle at Thornhill , Electric Fields is quirky and vibrant , and although the new kid on the D&G festival block , and the last major outdoor festival for the 2014 D&G festival season , thanks to the fab team and energy it has behind it, it still managed to get a huge crowd and have a vibe and energy of an established large festival !
Team DGWGO arrived at the festival at around 5.oopm , so we missed the Afternoon entertainment and bands , But we arrived in time to hear one of R.B’s favourite Ska bands starting their set , the wonderful ‘Bombskare’ Who had the whole of the 1,500 strong crowd Skanking their socks off in the glorious D&G Saturday afternoon sunshine !
‘The Next band up was ‘Prides’ The Glasgow 3 piece group , of Lewis, Stewart and Liam , Who recently played at the Glasgow 2014 closing ceremony . For a new small festival to have a band with such a following as Prides was pretty amazing , and they were just the start of one of the best wee line ups you could find anywhere in Scotland , and all for a tiny price of £25 entry ! Prides had an amazing on stage energy , rocking out hit after hit , and their drummer is just one of the best characters I have had the pleasure of photographing for some time , never have I seen such a great sound coming from such a tiny drum kit !
The Festival was set up in a great 2 main stage format as well , so basically as soon as one band finished the next would start , so there was no time wasted , and very little energy excelled moving from stage to stage as they were right next to each other ! Which is a festival set up I have never seen before and to be honest , I found it total genius , and so did most of the crowd too as far as we could see !
Next Band up for DGWGO to watch was Neon Waltz from Caithness , who once again had fantastic stage presence , and had the crowd dancing and swaying to their tunes ! We even spotted local rocker Cammie Black up at the back of the stage tapping his toes along to their music (pictured below) .
As far as team DGWGO’s opinion goes , Electric fields was turning out to be one of the best wee lineups of any Scottish festival this year , it was perfect , great atmosphere , great music , not to far to walk for Food or the bar , plenty of toilets , a good view of the main stages from anywhere in the field , just about heaven for any festival reveler ! Although , I must admit one thing , and It can be forgiven as this festival is just starting , the choice of food vendors was limited , and team DGWGO love their festival food , but I’m very sure as the festivals popularity grows so will these kind of choices and facility’s.
We Then headed off across the site to the ‘RED BULL STUDIOS LIVE’ which was mainly Electric dance type music , which was really well attended , and like a mini festival in its own right , I have never seen this set up before , and was really impressed , a great stage to have at a brand new festival , and something that I really enjoyed photographing ( Pictures Below )
Whilst on our wee walk around the beautifully set festival site , we popped into the bar to see what was going on , where we bumped into the lads of ‘ Jurassic Hard Copy Music & Film ‘
who were celebrating that their shop in Dumfries had been trading for exactly 5 months to the day , supplying Music , T shirts , Movies and much more , The lads were over the moon to be included as one of the stalls at the electric fields , and they told DGWGO they had sold so many Electric fields T shirts that they had to go print extra top keep up with demand !
Kevin SloanThen It was back to the press pit at the front of the main stages for team DGWGO , which as far as press pits at festivals go , was one of the friendliest and best I have had the honor of working in ! Team DGWGO were working with Kevin Sloan of Kss Images to , Kevin has been fantastic help to us at DGWGO , You can see his photos from the event at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.574901645954802.1073741985.181309905313980&type=1
Kevin at work
The Final Four bands that team DGWGO got to see where Stanley Odd , The La Fontaines, We Were Promised Jet packs , and the fantastic Fatherson .Who all put on a fantastic show and banged out tune after tune that kept the crowd warm even as the sun went down and the air cooled down in the D&G late summer . Pictured below are a mixture of shots taken from these four bands and the crowd .
Chay Woodman and Alex Roberts (co-founders) Of Electric fields both said
“We’re delighted with the overall success of the first and now inaugural Electric Fields. The weather was kind and the festival goers were in great spirits. We feel that we’ve created a family friendly event that stands out from everything else in Dumfries & Galloway, including musically. The feedback has been overwhelming and with the majority of ticket buyers coming from outside of the region, we’re obviously on the right path nationally. More than enough reason to start planning for 2015!’
Jim Gellatly – DJ & Broadcaster, of XFM Radio said .
“My dream festival line-up, with so much amazing emerging music from Scotland.”
So basically The DGWGO Round up of Electric fields 2014 is , WOW , brilliant , a real seed has been planted here , to grow into something amazing , you can just feel that this wee festival has the potential to become a real name , and be one of the main music events in the D&G summer calendar ! A massive well done to all those involved , and team DGWGO would like to thank the Electric Field guys for inviting us along , we can not wait to see what you pull out of the Box for 2015 !
The DGWGO electric Fields 2014 video will be coming very soon !
ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT TO R.B PHOTOGRAPHY , (contact [email protected] if you wish to use any of our photos , no copying without prior permission)
