camp bestival 2012
lakefest 2026
story : after my wife died in 2012, me and my lads decided to still go ahead with a pre-discussed plan and head off to a proper festival.
as my lads were young, camp bestival was the obvious choice.
and there on the sunday, as the dub pistols were doing their thing on the main stage, a friend took the picture of me in my original emf long sleeve shirt.
pre ‘unbelieveable‘ world domination chaos, the long sleeve shirt was only available via flyers that were handed outside the venues during their support tour with adamski (the rumour was that adamski banned emf from selling their own merch due to the insane demands), and has become a standard part of my festival t-shirt options.
fast forward to 2026 : a friend of mine helps organise the cheshire cat stage at lakefest.
emf are appearing on the main stage on the thursday, and so offers to sort things out so i can enjoy the festival in all its glory.
however, what i didn’t know was that james atkin (singer/emf) is also part of the live incarnation of bentley rhythm ace who are on the friday evening line up for the cheshire cat stage.
hence the opportunity for the second photo.
i also got ask james the one question i have always wanted to ask him.
basically, a long time ago i was in a position to ask jim ‘foetus‘ thirlwell a few questions for an interview for the quietus.
amongst all the foetus related questions i asked as to how he ended up remixing emf.
he never answered the question.
hence my curiosity.
turns out that the reality is nothing too exciting.
james told me that they shared the same management company at the time, and so the team-up was relatively straightforward.
still, all these years later, at least i know (it’s a bloody brilliant noisey remix for a ‘pop band’).
as to the rest of the lakefest festival :
madness headlined the main stage on the saturday and as per usual i became an emotional mess during their set of classics old and new,
woody cook puts on an insane performance for what is basically a dj set,
senser still make a tight as fck politically charged rock/hip hop racket,
i also learnt that my local crew(s) under their various guises are far too talented :
lowrn : d-n-b classics given a revamp with live drumming and vocals,
dj quark : 10 years of age and owns the stage despite not being able to see over the decks,
atomic kids rave : the most fun-n-laffs while your senses are being battered by bass heavy beats-n-samples.
and so so much more.
however, the musical highlight of the weekend for me was bentley rhythm ace.
despite that their 2 albums are over 20 years old, their car boot sourced samples via big beat productions, sound epic when performed live.
it has now been 2 days since i returned back to the safety of ireallylovemusic hq, i am still without a voice.
lakefest 2026 was that good.
more detail : here