When a 12 piece Romani Balkan Brass band renowned for their funky, fast, high-energy sound and driving crowds completely wild are unleashed on the Saturday night of a festival in front of an utterly packed main stage, there’s only one place to photograph from. The front.
That means jumping off front-of-house where Lampy is in control of the lighting desk, weaving through the packed but stationary outer layers of crowd, gently jostling and ducking past the swaying bodies and waving arms of those moving to the beat a little closer in, and finally dancing like a crazed thing in order to wade through the bedlam of the mosh to the front (taking care to avoid the small child sleeping on a pile of bags just in front of the stage of course). On this particular evening, my Pit Party training enables me to shoot from places other camera persons fear to tread…
Fanafare Ciocarlia are a band that really gets the party started. They perform with an all consuming passion, but also an infectious humour and playfulness. There are stage invasions, and Fox-eared hats borrowed from the crowd are used to give saxophonists a shock (resulting in a giggling fit lasting several minutes). Finally, as the set ends, the band descend from the stage to play in the crowd surrounded by massive smiles as Lampy quickly and deftly re-tasks the moving heads lighting the stage to play follow-spot and chase the tuba sticking up above the crowd as it writhes and bounces to the beat.
There are far, far worse ways to spend a Saturday night and Gilles Peterson had a very hard act to follow…
The Good Life Experience 17/09/2016
Lampy and Fox 