'I am Akira to your Tetsuo'

'I am Akira to your Tetsuo' - Quote from a poet at Wickerman Festival 2015

Unfortunately there is a piece of music that I have heard that you will never hear. It's just not possible, you needed to be there. You needed to be at Wickerman.

It happened like this. You stand by the main stage, with your back to the dance tent and open air dj booth. To your left, there's three noisy stages, two for up-and-coming acts and a third stage for the nearlies and the just-unders and so on. 

Main stage kicks off, a melody of a singer from 'way back when', with the two dance areas providing a Korg backbeat. Then those three stages join in, guitars full and low with a distortion that might have emerged from the depths of the most deepest and active volcano. 

It shouldn't work. They're not keeping the same tempo, not even in the same key. Main stage is singing about addiction, those guitars sound like they are the basis of several of the unhealthiest addictions yet to be discovered. And yet...

This is Wickerman Festival as I found it. There were good sounds from the stages and performers but part of the beauty of this festival is the mixture. A poem about pies accompanied guitar, a comedian buying viagra for his dad, a band from Sunderland with a l.p. currently at one million and umpteenth in the album chart. And at the end of it all a giant wickerman goes up in flames.

So, who did I see? Well, does it matter, there was so much on. I could have spent endless time in the performance tent alone, the Phoenix, Solus, and Scooter tents had such varied acts, and the main stage had massive crowd pleasers.

At the end of it though it comes down to that poet, a stand in for someone who couldn't make it, talking about generations and revolutions, tucking in a reference to Akira.