Review: Boomtown Fair

The UK’s most immersive festival returned this August with a new bag of tricks to warp the minds of some 50,000 people.  

BoomTown Fair, (Hampshire) now in its 7th year, has become known as much for its storyline and theatrics, as its music line up, which this year included:  Stephen Marley, Flogging Molly, Gogol Bordello, Shy FX , Goldie and Dillinja, and a surprise Sunday night set from The Skints. 

Never has it been so easy to forget the outside world as when you’re at BoomTown, a self-contained city (for which you even get your own passport) divided into heavily-themed districts including Wild West, Barrico Loco, Hidden Forest, Trench Town and new addition for 2015, Bang Hai Palace. 

The bass-centric new super stage replaces Arcadia, which was absent at the festival for the first time in three years. All stages and installation at BoomTown go above and beyond expectation, but the towering Bang Hai Palace – partially designed by a team from Tomorrowland – was a glory to behold and an adequate replacement for the Arcadia Spider (even if partly because you know you can see the Spider elsewhere). 

The storyline of Chapter 7 reimagined BoomTown as a crumbling dystopia ruled by elected-leader-turned-despot, Burrita José. 

Loyalists (AKA the Boominati) patrolled the districts, with BoomTown residents more than willing to get into character, with shouts of “One vision. One leader. One truth,” erupting around the crowds. Though those looking carefully could see hints of an uprising on the cards. 

Wandering around the festival, every door could lead somewhere – hidden raves, weird immersive theatre experiences, or being suspended mid-air in giant inflatable punching gloves, fighting a random opponent. 

You could spend the full three days exploring and it’s likely you still wouldn’t find all the hidden extras. 

The festival opened officially on Friday morning with royal reggae blood, Stephen Marley at the Lion’s Den stage (which this year had been moved to a much more open and much better location). 

He started out with a few of his own tracks, before moving on to Bob covers including Three Little Birds (every little thing is gonna be alright), Buffalo Soldier and – the best of the set – Iron, Lion, Zion. 

Old skool junglist David Rodigan joined Marley on stage towards the end of his set, before stepping up next with his own reggae ‘Ram Jam’ set.  

Moving beyond nostalgia, Rodigan gave a shout out to new music before upping the tempo to get the crowd ready for Shy FX a few hours later, which was the standout set of the whole festival. 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a video:   

Outside of the heavily-weighted reggae and bass line ups, at any given time throughout the festival, you could find something to suit every taste – with smaller stages dedicated to electro swing, psytrance and every variety of ska.  

Saturday’s stand out for me was Bristol’s Gorgon Sound (AKA Kahn and Neek) at the enchanting Tangled Woods stage, with the crowd so into the set that they gathered around the wall of speakers rather than the DJ booth. Props should also be given to Mr Scruff and Normal Jay, who took over the Boombox stage for a solid 10 hours. 

Unfortunately, Saturday’s penultimate set from DJ EZ was (as always) way too crowded and pushy to enjoy for anyone who is not an adolescent male.  

We opened Sunday at Lion’s Den again, with thousands sprawled across the hill leading down to the stage, and the sun hammering down despite a promise of torrential rain all weekend. 

Second act Gentleman’s Dub Club had no trouble getting a last-day crowd bouncing before midday, and frontman Jonathan Scratchley couldn’t hide his elation at the huge crowd singing back their High Grade. 

Goldie Lookin Chain gave a fun set at the Town Hall, before we moved on to see Dubstep pioneers Sherwood & Pinch followed by a Swap 81 takeover, featuring Loefah, Benton, Paleman, and Chunky. 

Sunday unfortunately brings an early curfew at BoomTown and the set that the weekend had been working up to, Goldie and Dillinja at Bang Hai Palace, was a just a little too quiet. 

As midnight hit, the stage was stormed by a group of masked rebels. The screens showed a rebel propaganda video. The festival ended on the message: the revolution is now! Leading on to Boomtown Chapter 8… We’re already counting down the days.

Photos by Leora Bermeister, Tom Martin, Benjamin Paul, Jody Hartley and Scott Salt.