Pretending to be Parky: Guilfest 2024
Did you know that The Stranglers were formed in 1974 as Guildford Stranglers? This fact presents itself via former VOX magazine art editor Paul Aarons in The Drummond, a pub on Guildford’s Woodbridge Road, the Friday evening before Guilfest. As the beer flows we wonder if any other bands have hometowns in their names but can only come up with The Coventry Automatics, who went on to become The Specials. This is slack work from us music devotees. What about The Dubliners, New York Dolls and Chicago? Unbelievable.
With fish and chips delivered, we glance over to a wall by the entrance to the boozer and notice a chalked-up sign reading “Reasons to be cheerful” (“Wednesdays from 12pm – our famous burger day”, etc). It’s apt. The Blockheads are also playing this forthcoming festival weekend and Jemima Dury, Ian Dury’s eldest daughter, will be an interviewee at the Guilfest Literary Stage – and this writer should know because he’ll be firing the questions.
Started by local businessman and keen festival-goer Tony Scott, Guilfest has been in existence since 1992 with the likes of Paul Weller, Bryan Ferry, Brian Wilson, Pulp and Orbital having appeared down the years in front of attendances as large as 20,000. Then, in 2012, the weather muscled in. The rolling grassland of Stoke Park was turned into a quagmire and ticket sales were poor – a disaster for the organisers. Scott’s firm Scotty Enterprises was liquidated with debts of £300,000.
There was another attempt to run a festival at Stoke Park in 2014 but if you believe that lightning never strikes twice, well it did in Guildford – another washout, more mud, and another of Scott’s companies went under. In 2022, a reduced fest was staged at Hurtwood Park Polo Club to the south of Guildford, headlined by Peter Hook and Sister Sledge, and this time the precipitation held, before an announcement was made in late 2023 that a ‘homecoming’ was planned for the following June. Guilfest would ride again, back at Stoke Park.
It’s a relief when Saturday arrives with tepid sunshine and temperatures in the low 20s – perfect, although the BBC forecast in the two-week run-up had threatened showers and we weren’t in the clear yet. The walk to Stoke Park from Travelodge Guildford is a delight. Guildford is lovely – like an idyllic Britain in the Seventies and no doubt the house prices in estate agents’ windows reflect this. On the way there are canoes on the River Wey, kids playing cricket and well-maintained ornamental gardens with a pond, paddling pool, rose gardens, tennis courts, crazy golf (sadly not open) and not a bit of litter in view.
The Guilfest site is on the brow of Stoke Park with views of the town’s cathedral from the Second Stage and a natural dip with the Main Stage sitting at its foot. There’s the usual rigmarole of a “Fourth Division John Robb” (not my words) trying to gain an artist’s wristband to a major UK music festival but in the queue there’s Derby John from The Activators to keep us company, who regales us with tales of Guilfests past while wearing a 1987 Derby County home shirt – something of a gimmick for this guitarist of ska, rock and reggae. We talk briefly about Marco Gabbiadini and the Baseball Ground, and then, finally, we’re allowed in, sporting pink rubber jewellery above the hand: “Guilfest 06” the words read. Hmm, a money-saving measure, no doubt.
There are a number of stages on site – Funky End Dance Tent; Jokers Comedy Tent; Cave Stage – but they’re fairly small and these rapidly fill as the sun blazes directly overhead. There is little in the way of shelter. Even the VIP area, with its spotlessly clean loos, offers sparse shade. The factor 30 – Kryptonite to all men – is liberally applied amid protestation and howls.
What quickly becomes apparent is how woefully underprepared the festival is for beer drinkers. Queues accumulate and we quickly hear from a friend that the wait for a pint is a barely believable one hour. Thankfully this isn’t a consideration for those with work to do, but the price of a halloumi wrap – £14 – leaves an acrid taste in the mouth. We’re not off to a good start. Coffee, £4.50.
It’s soon pointed out that those with artist’s pink wristbands can eat gratis at the nearby Wey Valley Indoor Bowls Club which, as it turns out, is an oasis of calm and cover from the summer sun. Have you ever seen a floodlit indoor bowls green? Woooah!! There’s one here and it looks spectacular – like the Wembley of bowling. Mac cheese and chips, iced coffee, thank you very much.
Some of us are here for graft and you can read my on-stage interviews with the former Tottenham midfielder David Howells, Nick Godwyn, the former manager of Amy Winehouse, and Jemima Dury, daughter of Ian Dury, on this site. How about that for a melange of personalities? It’s probably the nearest I’ll ever get to being Michael Parkinson – a bit of a South Yorkshire hero. After three hours of interviews, there’s a natural performer’s thirst.
With the queue to the beer tent still like a tailback on the M1 on a Bank Holiday, a Google search reveals a slew of pubs within ten minutes’ walk, so we sadly give Black Grape the heave-ho. In the bright sunlight outside The Stoke – on a glorious stretch of road where two pubs face each other – lagers are slopped as the Swiss take a shock lead against Italy on TV and England’s route to the Euros semis, despite our lack of on-field panache thus far, seems doable should we overcome Slovakia.
A decision needs to be made. The Stranglers or Elvana? Elvana – an Elvis impersonator fronting a band playing Nirvana tracks sounds perplexing on paper but interest piqued, we gather at the Second Stage – and wooooo! The band are smartly dressed in white shirts and ties, while the frontman is in a black and green jumpsuit with cannabis motifs. The gathering on this warm Saturday evening are given a performance of showmanship that “The King” would appreciate. The music is tight, the backing singers with furry pink pom-poms look groovy and the strangely Che Guevara-esque mix of Presley and Cobain is… crowd-surfing… “I feel stupiiiiiid and contaaaaaagggiiouuusss… Yeaaahhh!”
The Stranglers can be heard from the main stage and our Elvis, who we’d now follow to the ends of the Earth, joins in: “Walking on the beaches lookin’ at the peaches”, he croons. Hah! Fantastic! Elvana should be on the Main Stage but there’s no complaints here. It was one of the greatest, funniest, most-bizarre gigs that this crowd has seen.
Sunday begins under dark egg-carton clouds and Guildfordians go about their morning business with umbrellas. Oh heck, can lightning strike… thrice? Cover from prolonged rain is taken in Woodbridge Café, a wooden shack with American diner seating in the lee of a railway bridge on Woodbridge Road – a thoroughfare that is now the centre of the universe – with plentiful breakfast options. Its tremendous. Fried bread is an extra for £1.50 and worth every heart-attack-probing penny. It’s £20 for two breakfasts including tea and toast and we are stuffed to the gunwales. No more food will be required until Monday.
On Guilfest’s Facebook page there’s mention of the previous day’s drink-tent debacle and promises to put wrongs right – and the difference is noticeable as a shining disc breaks through the clouds overhead. Queues are greatly reduced. It’s with massive disappointment that my single Q&A for Sunday with Guilfest and Glastonbury booker Martin Elbourne is cancelled at the last minute. Martin was keen on the phone, plus he’s a Lib Dem councillor and wanted to talk about the need for young people to get involved with politics. Maybe next year.
With work now complete, yet stuck in a high gear of excitement to perform, a beer is required to un-jangle the nerves. The £7 price tag doesn’t help much – it’s 60p more than London pubs – but needs must. Then, a circumduction of stalls is required to let off further steam. Second-hand football shirts catch the eye, you can have a St George Cross painted on your cheeks at Bad Make Up, plus there’s Jenny Barrett’s SuperLooper where you can rent baby clothes worry free with no charges for stains – which sounds quite sustainable, doesn’t it (superlooperlife.com)?
We’re on prosecco now and feeling more in the festival spirit as we shift down slope to the Main Stage for something completely different – Dutty Moonshine Big Band, an unexpectedly decent mix of urban, brass and dance. They’re from Bristol. Apparently their 2020 LP City Of Sin reached No.40 in the UK Album Chart. They are sharp and brilliant. And their timing is immaculate – bringing their raucous set to a close 45 minutes before England’s match with Slovakia is due to kick-off.
It’s agony. Peter Hook & The Light are due on stage either in the second half of the England match or just after it – and the thought of missing “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, “Temptation” and “World In Motion” – which they play – is beyond belief having seen Hooky perform so many times down the years. But we regrettably bail Guilfest – and march, on the double, and in England shirts, to the pub across the road from The Stoke, The King’s Head.
You’ll recall the game; the Jude Bellingham overhead kick, the Harry Kane winner in extra time. What you’ll be unaware of is the drunken journey back to London afterwards and the colossal disappointment of once again finding that Great Northern is unable to run a train service whenever a major England international is played – everything cancelled. C’mon Sir Keir, nationalise these cretinous clowns and let’s have a proper railway again.
So, Guilfest is back where it belongs – Stoke Park – and Tony Scott appears driven, still, to give Guildford a summer party it deserves. It was a howl, but it needs to learn from its mistakes. Get the bar sorted – maybe have smaller bars all around the site, some serving wine and prosecco, some serving cider and perry, some craft beer oddities. Give more shelter from searing sunshine, get tons more hay bales around the site for seating, have a noticeboard at the literary tent giving times of those appearing, lower the cost of on-site food and drink and get Elvana back. And maybe that VIP area needs a DJ. I can ask The Funk Pursuivant about his availability.