LARMER TREE FRIDAY: Fiddling while Beruit burns

The Ace of Spades seems to be turning into something of a 'country' standard. Bizare!

The second day of the festival… and it is still only Friday! After lounging around most of the morning reading about the goings on in the Lebanon in the Guardian, which was quite depressing, we headed for the site once more.

One of the first things we came across was a ‘Duke Box’, which was basically a chopped up caravan turned into a juke box with a difference, it actually had a live band inside it. A simple idea I suppose but it made me chuckle.

New look Elephant Talk line up get the garden grooving

ELEPHANT TALK: An old favourite here at Iguana HQ. They play a blend of instrumental Celtic fused dance music with a strong influence of trance, funk and eastern musical styles. This line up is slightly different from the last time we caught them, the didge has gone but they now have a harp instead (although I am sure I detected the didge on the sampler that was beefing up the sound). Very pleasant, but I think I preferred the old line up.

WALK ABOUTS: There were a few walk abouts on show, one that particularly caught the imagination was the 23 hour rolling news desk.

DREADZONE: After considerable lounging about trying to find shade, drinking Cider and Apple Moonshine we headed over to see the mighty Dreadzone. Originally formed in 1992 they were among the early pioneers of the reggae techno crossover that is still vibrating dancehalls today. Their second album ‘Second Light’ set the world on fire and is still regularly spinning here in Iguana land. There have been several albums since then, demonstrating a mixed quality, and there was a bit of a break while the line up went into a state of flux. They returned with a new line up and a new album in 2005 and are now shaking the planet with dub vibrations like they have never been away.

Tonights set touched upon all stages of the Dread evolution and even had the beardy folkies skanking… but then you cannot help but be moved by these boys.

"Syd Barret died this week, so this is a song by another dead guy, Johnny Cash"

LARRY LOVE SHOW BAND: To all intents and purposes, this is our old mates the Alabama 3 without keyboards drums or bass. But this stripped down ‘unplugged’ set was still able to raise the ghost of Johnny Cash to lower the tone of the festival, or as Larry put it ‘bring a bit of the ghetto to the Larmer Tree with songs about guns and f*cking’. Larry had to admit defeat though in the face of such ‘overwhelming fluffyness'.