It's amazing what you can find out about the world and yourself being surrounded by complete strangers listening to house and electro for four days. As festival season draws to a close, here's what we learnt at the irrefutably beautiful and expertly curated Houghton Festival...
Words The REPEAT team (@repeatmag)
Photos of the festival Khroma Collective
1. Midland is a master
The sunrise set on Friday night has to be one of the prime slots. There’s still the start-of-festival buzz and no one has collapsed yet. Large and in charge at Pavilion, Midland did the moment justice. He had apparently been curating the set for months, and you could really tell. He steered the crowd through the spectrum of house and some more bass heavy selections, scratching all the right spots along the way.
2. Houghton Festival is palace-approved
Those with a keen eye will have noticed DJ and Palace skater Rory Milanes bopping from stage to stage across the weekend. Dressed in a two-piece Palace shell suit, the Londoner took a rare moment away from the streets and his own turntables to soak up various grooves, and like the rest of us, find a few new tunes for our record collections.
3. Royalty like raves too
The Dutchess of disco? Yes, that's right, Kate Middleton couldn't help but get involved in Houghton's 24-hour action. It was hardly Prince Harry at SGP during his cocaine and magic mushroom phase but the Princess of Wales is said to have enjoyed her walk through the festival's idyllic grounds.
4. There’s an argument to be had for more live performances at Houghton
We can already hear the vacant tuts of Houghton’s electro and techno heads beginning to take shape for this one but hear us out. On Saturday, during the tropical downpour, ELIZA took to Pinters with her band, swooning a sleepy crowd to their feet for an afternoon boogie. The trip-hop and stripped-back funk cuts from ‘A Sky Without Stars’ got everyone in the mood after a beautifully curated Midland ambient set. You can’t help but think that artists like Mansur Brown, George Riley and John Glacier would go down with similar praise. Besides, Lukas Wigflex was in and amongst the action.
5. Espresso Martinis hit different at a festival
‘Alright you boujee bitches!’, you might be thinking, ‘What’s wrong with a warm Stella or squadka?’, others may argue. Query this one as you wish, but with a permanent queue, Houghton’s Espresso Martini options became the perfect palette cleansers or perk-me-ups over the weekend. Yes, £10 is a hefty price tag but sometimes it’s only right to treat yourself after a night of raving.
6. Dairylea triangles never go off
It was 26ºc as we made our way down the A148 last Thursday. And while we might have seen both rain and shine over the weekend, there’s no denying that Houghton does not have the same ambient temperature as a fridge. And yet on Monday morning, desperate to locate some positive feelings about getting behind the wheel, I found myself shovelling down Dairylea triangles like a woman possessed. You heard it here first, folks – Dairylea triangles are both shelf-stable and delicious.
7. The Quarry can get kinda muddy
At around 4PM on the Saturday, torrential rain struck Houghton, and although many of the stages are in forestland, very few provide proper shelter. An apocalyptic scramble to the tents ensued. When people eventually emerged, those heading to The Quarry would have been surprised to see a lake-sized body of water forming in the middle of the dancefloor. Those at Binh on the Sunday morning didn’t seem to care though, as ravers happily revelled in the mud or politely tip-toed around its vast circumference.
8. Be careful for what you wish for...
24-hour party people, are we? For some, heading to Terminus for the unholy hours of the morning is a rite of passage. Sometimes, though, you need to be told when to go to bed. And to stand a chance of not queuing for hours on end, we found that you had to sacrifice some of the weekend’s best acts to do so. A few hours’ sleep and a late morning rendezvous at the stage, however, is the perfect way to start your day at Houghton.
9. Get in the Binh?
When one of Berlin's most respected DJs rolls through to Houghton, you simply have to see them. Besides, Binh's a house and electro legend. His set at The Quarry proved this, spinning a beautiful and meandering set of progressive rollers. However, his antics at Terminus afterwards didn't go down too well with DJs and the audience alike. Too mashed to mix, the selector ended up clanging so many blends that others had to usher him away from the 1s and 2s. We wouldn't want to be Binh's brain the morning after.
10. Vapes may be dreadful for you, but boy do they taste good in the dance…
People clutch to their vapes like … . There’s certainly an unhealthy dependency on them nowadays, especially when bopping between your favourite DJs. It’s the first and last thing many of us do before going to bed; the modern-day night cap you might say. Who needs a swig of whisky when you have nicotine and a Valium instead? This year’s undisputed favourite at Houghton was the strawberry ice-flavoured Lost Mary. You were never far from the sweet and sickly smell.
11. DJs and genres shouldn't be put in such rigidly defined boxes
So much of the way we talk about music is based on description, let alone when we write about it. We take tracks and neatly summarise them by discussing genre, tempo and style, in a way that's reductive when compared to the experience of listening to a song. Houghton this year saw a melding of disparate styles into a near-perfect harmony. Whereas last year's stages were more neatly organised into scenes, this year saw the deck shuffled and more unexpected pairings on nightly schedules. Undoubtedly this had an effect on the sets, with a highlight being Omar playing Untold’s post-dub classic 'Sweat', alongside his more usual minimal techno stylings.
12. Compliments make the world go round
I loved the blue fluffy jacket hanging over the barrier at Animistic Beliefs. And the red dragon temporary tattoo that looked so real in the queue for the juice truck. I loved the lad dressed as a cowboy and his girlfriend’s “I ❤ Cowboys” shirt. I loved my mate’s frog hat and his matching eyeliner. And everyone else’s eyeliner… because I did everyone’s eyeliner. But more than anything else, I love the massive grins you get in response when you tell someone how great they look.
13. Give D-Bridge enough Lucky Saint, and he may just give you the best festival-closing set you’ll ever see
Earlier on the Sunday, we caught D-Bridge at Tantrum for what was a rambunctious live set. Just hours later, he closed Outbursts with a totalitarian mix of footwork, jungle and just about everything his Exit Records imprint epitomises. One of the more surprising consistencies between his performances was the amount of Lucky Saint cans he drank throughout the evening. D-Bridge: a true man of the people.
14. The best stage is wherever you have the most fun
It was 5AM on Saturday night and Erol Alkan had just closed Outburst. We’d had a big weekend so far; it was to be expected. But someone, somewhere, is always having a bigger weekend than you. And our good friend, like some sort of tech-loving Doctor Faustus, had sold his soul to the taco truck in exchange for free entry and a decent bit of cash.
Two hours into his 3am to 12 noon shift, maybe out of sympathy, we went to offer some words of encouragement and in hope of some free scran. It was under these circumstances that we found our new favourite stage: a fusion food truck blaring out donk remixes. Terminus, eat your heart out.
15. Nothing beats a noodle-based lunch
Whether it's pot noodles or Vietnamese noodle salads, slurpy cuisine hits differently at a festival…
16. Some people must only exist in festival land
It’s the middle of the afternoon and the tunes are thumping at Earthling. A man stood nearby is cutting shapes like the rest of us. He’s wearing a court jester hat and has mismatched butterfly temporary tattoos stamped under his eyes. It’s all fairly standard festival behaviour. Except, bizarrely, he has wired earphones in. And upon further questioning, we discover that he’s listening to his own music. “Everyone’s dancing to my favourite songs.”
Where did he appear from? What is he doing now? Who pays him to be a normal bloke on the average weekday? I fear we will never know.
17. You can lie to anyone, but sometimes the truth is funnier
“So how do you know the gang?” “Well, we were meant to be coming with one of our mates, but then she hurt herself in a jiu-jitsu competition last weekend, so we tagged along with this lot instead.” “Oh… right.”
18. Pints, trippers and pinters might be the perfect festival combination
As you approach Pinters, something becomes glaringly obvious; everyone is off their head on mushrooms. The rows of pew chairs and ambient daytime sets are an attractive proposition for anyone in need of some holistic realignment. An ice-cold pint offers its own healing powers, and the combination of all three proved rather medicinal at several moments.
19. Everyone needs to unleash their animalistic beliefs once in a while...
Rotterdam duo Animalistic Beliefs cleared half the dancefloor when Linh opened their set with her signature screams. As is the ritualistic nature of their music, though, everyone came crawling back into the haze of strobes and pulsating modular synths. The spiritual essence of their music was beautiful to bear witness to, and for that hour, all pent-up aggression was released into a transcendental pool of unadulterated euphoria.
20. Klättermusen bags have everyone in a chokehold
And why wouldn’t they? The Swedish brand’s range of mountaineering equipment may not be made with British wreck heads in mind, but its sturdy fabrics, strong look and multiple compartments offer a lightweight accessory perfect for storing your raving essentials.
21. Terminus is a time warp
Terminus is the dark horse of the Houghton stages. The line-up is a (poorly kept) secret, and it’s the only place you’ll find music pumping 24/7. Its legendary status and strict capacity cap mean that there is almost constantly a queue. For entry on Sunday, you had to stick it out for up to 3 hours. And once you’re in, its very hard to leave. The mesmerising circular space sunk into the ground and surrounded by trees will suck you in. Queuing at 5pm on Sunday, I saw a group staggering out and checking the time to realise they’d been captive for over 10 hours.
22. …but its also the best
Don’t let us put you off. And don’t be tempted to join the hundreds ditching the queue. The Terminus experience is just about as Houghton as it gets, and it's agreed by most veterans to be the best stage.
23. We’re going back next year
See you there.