Festival Queen #1: Big Tent : Earz Magazine

Festival Queen #1: Big Tent

August 25, 2008 · Words: Elizabeth T. Hacker ·

This is a guest post by Elizabeth T. Hacker, illustrator, writer and seasoned festival-goer– the field-friend of hippies and hipsters alike.

Big Tent Festival, by Steven Malone Accidental Afternoon at Big Tent Festival, Fife

It takes a person of considerable talent to miss the Isle of May ferry to see puffins twice in two days – the second time only by ten minutes! I am that person. I’m puffy with disappointment.

What could possibly stop up this puffin-sized ache? The Big Tent festival! A gathering we stumbled upon down the road in Falkland, Fife. No hype, no mass crowds, no boot camp Hitler stewards (as at that Goliath, Hydro Connect), just hippies communing in an orchard, dancing in a field, in the sun, in the mist, in the sun – it was like jubilation in a wigwam!

Small festivals are where it’s at, folks. We caught the tail end of a poetry workshop (where we found exuberant and self-congratulatory hippies), Grassroots Zimbabwe (musically energized, political hippies) Moishe’s Bagel (dancing to Balkan rills hippies)…but the highlight? The Peatbog Faeries! Imagine a bagpiped, Scottish Crocodile Dundee in New York, funky, seventies disco, luau. It was impossible not to jump about! And when the Zimbabwean’s jumped on stage for some impromptu dancing…! Magic! It’s moments like these that make small festivals so incredible. Pay your big bucks, see your big bands, see everything choreographed into meaninglessness. Here we have room for human spontaneity that celebrates life and makes you feel alive! Thank you Big Tent for a wicked Sunday afternoon!

Next week I’m off to the Lime Tree Festival in North Yorkshire (English hippies!)

Link to the Big Tent Festival website.

Photo by Steven Malone, ©

Posted in Events & Music