Guilfest 2007

by Joanna Orland

How do you top last year’s Guilfest that featured such retro classics as Billy Idol and Gary Numan? Well, you don’t. But Guilfest has that quality to it that other festivals don’t – it’s not really about the music in particular. It’s about having a nice day out with the whole family in a friendly and lively environment. Despite missing all the bands we wanted to see, we still managed to really enjoy ourselves. Wandering around, chatting with people, admiring all the men in fancy dress (why do men like to dress up as women at Guilfest?) and just lying in the sun. For the kids, there’s a nice kid’s play area with bouncy castles and everything!!! It’s kind of like a really nice day in the park with lots of stuff to see and do.

Now, Guilfest is also considered to be a music festival with its target audience being the older parental crowd. Hence the nostalgic mellow retro favourites on the bill. This year’s Guilfest included Jimmy Cliff, Squeeze, Supergrass and Richard Thompson (Teddy’s dad). We only made it down to Saturday’s festivities to check out Jimmy Cliff and Pull Tiger Tail. Considering Jimmy Cliff was listed as one of the top acts on the bill for Saturday, it was a bit upsetting that he went on stage so early at about 2:30pm!!! Needless to say, we didn’t expect this and missed most of his set. Grr.

We stuck around to check out our fave up and coming act Pull Tiger Tail. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the tent they were playing at until 20 minutes into their set… so typically we only saw one and a half songs by the lovely hotties PTT. GRRRRRR… It was an awesome venue though. Felt like being at an intimate gig. If only it was a bit easier to find…

Anyway, Guilfest was fun. A tame festival for a weekend of chilling in the park to music and laughing along to ace standup comics. Could go a bit more full on with the selection of retro acts. Don’t be afraid Guilfest… People have managed to recover from last year’s (Rock-a-)Billy Idol!