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Wilderness 2011 | Review Our Reviews: The Student
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This is the latest in our Review Our Reviews series, where we ask people to critique/ criticise/ comment on the written work of aspiring reviewers. If you’d like to write an album review or a match report, email us at hacks@wannabehacks.co.uk
Wilderness isn’t really a festival. In fact, the latest addition to the packed summer festival calendar takes the concept of a festival, rips it up into a fair few thousands pieces and let’s it float across the beautiful Oxfordshire countryside where it takes place. ”It doesn’t have any boundaries, it’s not limited by anything,” Tim Harvey, it’s founder, will have you believe in it’s charming promotional video and it turns out he’s right.
The latest creation from the makers of Lovebox and Secret Garden Party, Wilderness curates everything that a more discerning (can one say older?) festival goer would want from a weekend. The emphasis on gourmet dining, with 800 person banquets from Sam and Sam Clark from Moro and Skye Gyngell of Petersham Nurseries, appeals to those with toned tastebuds whilst Intelligence Squared and The Idler prompt furrowed brows during a packed three days of debate and discussion. This was a work-out for mind and stomach.
Often with festivals, people talk in terms of headliners. At Wilderness, the main attraction was the great woodlands of Wychwood Forest in the the lush grounds of Cornbury Park, complete with picturesque boating lake (and obligatory lengthy queue). In fact, such was the beauty of the surroundings that the music, with the Guillemots, Dry The River and Laura Marling all warmly received, almost became a distraction.
The size and make-up of Wilderness, with around 10,000 people present for it’s six-years-in-the-making debut, made it a family affair and the big children’s area, with heavily-worked circus skills man and tempting leaf rubbing area, was well-used.
But it was when the forest became submerged by darkness that it took on a different vibe. On the Friday, the Where the Wild Things secret shindig, with The Artful Badger’s ravenous drum set, must have kept awake neighbours, including Rebekah Brooks and Jeremy Clarkson, in nearby Chipping Norton.
That continued the next day as The Old Vic Tunnels’ put on The Magic Alter Ego Wardrobe which, through a collective process of spitting on a grape and being smoked in a room like a kipper, turned participants into the people they’d always wanted to be. A perfect prelude to a masked ball, some would say.
There’s bound to be an increase in the number of Wildnerness attendees next year. One just hopes that it retains that very unfestival feeling and gets some more boats for its beautiful lake.
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