#jamalot

The stage, hidden out the back of a fake portaloo and down 20 m of hessian bag-clad fencing, was managed by the indefatigable ‘Bombsquad’ of Jamalot. It was strictly for the hard crew, and as such, we put in the hard yards and played a total of about 10 hours. Most of those might have had the audience in bed, but we still layed down fire, and it was a sheer pleasure to blast tunes of that quantity through a rig of that quality. I will never be able to listen to audio in my car again, as it just sounds like a tired scream.

We played all-the-vibes hard set late Friday night to a full room in the Jamalot stage. Ollie said afterwards he thought that we were getting these 1 hr slots down nice and tight, whilst keeping it eclectic. A few Balkan bangers got played, a few jungle tunes, a lot of vinyl heat, some electro, some afrobeat: basically a condensed carnival.

Technically the next day we weren’t on until 5pm, but Gerard couldn’t stop himself showing us all how it’s done. Soloing a 2 hr strictly vinyl reggae set that started at 11 am, he got everyone back in the tunes mood. Special shout has to go to Ninjaman’s “Kill Dem & Done”- my god that tune tore the place up. He got Ollie and me out of our tents and back in the game, and we then all played for another 3 hrs, all over the place, balkan, dancehall, electro, bass, reggae, 45s... shit at one point we had two 10 inch records on while we laid down the jungle fire with some of Chopstick Dubplate’s finest. We played right through to The Dublings set at 4pm, and got some great support from them when I played my closer of ganja tune after ganja tune after whole crew singalong ganja tune. Ollie also decapitated me at one point when he played Bauer’s Iced Up through the Funktion 1 rig.

It was rainy, it was beautiful, it sounded crispy. Big up to the whole Jamalot family - nearly too many to mention, but Danny and Bomb really held it all together on the late shift, and also with the pack up that everyone always overlooks. Great fun always, and will be sure to give Bomb a call when I fly back into town to make sure we can get the rig pon the road for some more carnival classics.