Buzzin Electronic Music

The Garden Festival, Petrcane, Croatia 6- 13th July

The Garden Festival, Petrcane, Croatia 6- 13th July

I am as yet still confused as to the name of the festival… perhaps The Most Friendly Festival, The Festival of Sea, Waves and Boats, or even the Happiest Clappiest Festival would be more accurate than Garden.  Hey ho, what’s in a name though, right?

The Garden Festival has been running for 5 years and has generated a fantastic fan base from both the participants and the performers for being a spot on boutique beach festival.  Due to this the line up this year was particularly strong with a blend of old time party favourites such as Greg Wilson playing alongside DJ’s du jour Seth Troxler and Jamie Jones.

The Garden Festival site is on it’s own peninsula in a little fishing village with an amazing view of islands on the horizon.  The whole site is open from midday, where you can lounge on the waters edge and work on your tan whilst the music slowly builds up in intensity to a party atmosphere.  There are essentially three main areas on the site.  My favourite is the beach bar, where a dance floor has been erected on stilts over the water.  Those foolhardy/ brave enough can dance in front of the stage whilst the waves crash over them.  The dance floor was the perfect place for watching the sunset dip behind the distant islands.

To get to the main stage you walk through canopies of trees, which house large day beds for reclining on.  The main stage itself is quite a small size with a sunken middle to help bring the revellers into close proximity.  The Argonaughty boat parties provide off site entertainment for four hours sailing on the Adriatic Sea.  At night once the festival closes outdoors, the 70’s kitsch Barbarella nightclub opens until 6 am.  And that is it.

Chali 2NA from Jurassic 5 with Buzzin Groupies

The Garden Festival can be walked around in about ten minutes and walked through in five.  It is this tiny size in a beautiful setting that gives the festival a unique intimacy you wouldn’t normally get to experience at larger festivals.  This is how friendships are made and developed.  The chance encounters with strangers, turn into a familiar, ‘hello,’ then by the end of the weekend, you will have danced, bathed and eaten with these people and felt as though you have known them for months.

With the festival being held over two weekends, the musician’s rota was split.  The split unfortunately wasn’t known until about a month beforehand, which meant that there was a high likelihood, that some of the people you wanted to see could be playing on a different weekend to the one that you had booked to go.  And that is my first gripe.  Also due to the split, the DJ’s quite often end up doing more than one gig; this has it’s pluses and minuses.  Obviously, it’s great if you miss one of the performances so you get the chance to see them again.  Jamie Jones was a prime example of this- he played at the Mulletover party in Barbarella’s on the Friday and then again at the beach bar on the Saturday.  This provides the opportunity for DJ’s to play a different style set dependant on the location and time; a chance I’m sure that provides a freedom to explore their different musical styles.

On the other hand though, I can’t help but think I want to hear one of the other performers that was announced on the initial billing for the festival.  But I maybe alone on that disappointment, because at the end of the day the quality of those playing was so high that it didn’t effect the overall enjoyment of the event.

So, to specifics of those played and the music heard.  I’ve dubbed the festival, the festival of Stevie Wonder.  His smooth funk was the iconoclastic sound that bound the festival style together.  I heard his vibrant melodies, enriched with disco and his soulful voice dropped by many a DJ throughout my three days there.  It was the sound of a festival teeming with good times music with the sole purpose to make you feel good and dance.

The Mulletoverboard Boat Party was the perfect way to be drawn into the party atmosphere of the Garden Festival on the first Friday.  Geddes, a regular stalwart of the Mulletover parties, played a phenomenal set of tech- house- minimal marvellous-ness.  Ralph Lawson, head honcho of 2020 Vision displayed his highly tuned professionalism by his fantastic impromptu set (impromptu as Jamie Jones was the act supposed to be performing but was still enroute to Croatia).  By the time we fell off the boat at 6 pm, the heightened sense of revelry meant everyone returned to the festival site to continue the party fairly seriously.

Crazy P’s live set was future boogie and funk infused.  Snippets of Manchester house filled the sound as did the warmth of saxophones and slinky vocals.  Jamie Jones set in Barbarella’s fulfilled every expectation of his unique ‘Ketamine Tech House’ sound as epitomised by his playing of this summer’s track ‘Without You’ by The Art Department.

Saturday’s music offering was to be highlighted with a serious disco turn by the headliners of the main stage in the evening- Horse Meat Disco.  Leading up to their unique contemporary take on the disco genre we were treated to further interpretations of the disco sound via Jamie Jones, Rob da Bank, The Revenge and Greg Wilson down at the beach bar.

The highlight of these four was Rob da Bank’s dropping of a mix of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere.’  The melody took a while to come in, so it snuck up on the crowd and exploded with the looped chorus ‘I want to be with you everywhere’.  This was a serious goose pimples on the tops of arms moment.  German Tensnake played just before Horse Meat on the main stage, and did a fine job playing his electronic style of disco that got the crowd very hot and sweaty.

Sunday had a more lazy summer Hip Hop type feel as initially provided by Big Dada artist Ty, then followed up with Breakestra from LA featuring Chali 2na from Jurassic 5.  A fine example of the chilled out friendly atmosphere of The Garden was Charli 2na seen happily walking around the festival post his set, greeting fans, posing for photos and sharing hugs with all.

Greg Wilson finished off the Sunday evenings ‘day’ activities with a fantastic set incorporated tracks that spread the length and breadth of his career.  He included Primal Scream, Hercules and Love Affair and the original ‘You’ve Got the Love’ by Candi Staton.  His set concluded with Barry White’s ‘Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe’- oooh yeah!

Earlier I alluded to some quibbles with the festival.  A big thing was the Croatian water- it makes you sick.  Stomach aches and inability to eat for three days was a pain in the, er stomach!  As the site is in a fishing village, the power switch board struggles to handle the outgoings necessary to generate a multiple stage sound/ lighting gig and on a number of times the festival was struck with power failures.

Friday suffered the worst with 30 minutes disappearing into blackness at 11 pm.  The beach cocktail bar ran out of all spirits but one type reducing the list to only one style of cocktail on the Saturday night.  And the boat party has the most unusual disorganised bar set up I have experienced.  All these issues and the festival wasn’t at capacity.  As stated earlier my main issue was the fact that the festival split the line up over two weekends.  This seems to have been other’s issues too, as The Garden Festival website has announced next year they will be holding the festival over one weekend only.  A huge improvement if you ask me.

The other quibbles can easily be rectified with greater organisation dependent on knowledge of numbers of attendees and the demands that the numbers will place on the site.

All in all, the festival was great fun.  A lovely boutique festival, which feels intimate, held in an amazing location.  The feeling generated is warm, fuzzy and incredibly friendly.

I definitely recommend it to those looking for an alternative to the larger more hectic European festivals because here you have the opportunity to have a slower paced holiday with music thrown in or you can choose to get involved in all the activities The Garden has on offer.   The Garden Festival?  More aptly The Damn Good Festival in Croatia!

For more information visit www.thegardenfestival.eu