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It was visionary architect and war veteran Sir Clough Williams-Ellis’ surreal world we arrived on Friday afternoon for the third annual Festival No 6 – an ambitious gathering of artists, writers, comedians, DJs and musicians, assembled by the minds behind the Manchester club night Electric Chair and Electric Elephant festival in Croatia.
"I used to make it to as many as 10 festivals a summer back in the day," Stephen from Withington told me over a joint in the grass, "but I have to be selective since my son was born. One maybe two a year."
In spite of coming over all grown up, No 6 was a whole lot of fun, so I'll piece together my memories as best I can.
After pitching our tents atop a mushroom-adorned mound in the main camping, area we stretched our legs into Portmeirion village, our heads a mixture of daze from the coach ride and wonder at the surroundings unfolding before us.
It's hard to describe what we were presented with. But attempting to bottle Portmeirion with words in his swinging sixties book, ‘The Highway and the City,’ respected architecture critic Lewis Mumford noted that Portmeirion is “a playful little modern village of architectural relics and impish modern fantasies.”
And the village of Portmeirion is every bit as strange and enchanting as Mumford describes. It’s the sort of place where you might expect to encounter a Columbian coke baron lying low, a film star drying out, or the Pope holidaying.
At the heart of the village is the central piazza, a mystical amphitheater filled with sculpted pillars, gargoyles, and for No 6, a carnival atmosphere of masks, ribbons, confetti and serious fancy dress – one man navigated the lane ways on Saturday afternoon in vintage deep-sea diving kit, boots and all. And throughout the festival, people reclined on deck chairs listening to poetry, song, tall tales, witticisms, and cultural discourse. Two highlights in particular being a talk on Sunday afternoon by Observer and Guardian food critic Jay Rayner, and on Saturday and Sunday night, the rousing Brythoniaid Welsh Male Voice Choir covering classics like New Order's ‘Blue Monday’ and Chic's ‘Good Times.’
Those with hard currency and the foresight to book ahead choose to spend the weekend in the lap of luxury at the sparkling Dywryd Estuary, on which rests the iconic 4-star Hotel Portmeirion. Opposite that, grinning picnickers on blankets enjoyed folk tales flowing from the Estuary Stage, which was situated beside a roped-off swimming pool. And below was the Stone Boat, a reconstructed wreck, which housed DJs from Dicky Trisco to Guy Williams.
The main arena, named the Castell Park, presented more familiar festival sights: circus tents, stages, bars and eateries ranging from a vegetarian curry house to chilli dog stands to posh pie vans. Being peasants, mostly we fed ourselves with bananas and cut-price sandwiches from Spar, washed down with cans of Carlsberg and multivitamins. But twice I indulged in a delicious spiced bean pie and chips with lashings of gravy, on a paper plate, for £8.50. It simply had to be done.
"The food's good, though it's just as pricey as I imagined it would be," said Mike, a restaurant manager from Soho.
On Friday evening, Bonobo's downtempo and distinctly British sound rang out from the stunningly-lit main stage as the moon light and darkness fell on the peninsula, and we made for the I-stage to catch former The Beta Band front man Scot Steve Mason roll the likes of 'Am I just a Man?’ and 'Lost and Found’, demonstrating how good indie can sound if in the hands of a talented song writer and stage presence.
At around a quarter to 10pm, droves of laughing and chattering people headed to the main stage for London Grammar, and we made for the Kraken Bar – a consistently cheerful rum tent and club that we repeatedly returned to over the weekend – for plastic glasses of rum and ginger, running us £5.90. And after a much-needed refreshment, returned to the I-Stage (now known as the Late Night Pavilion) for Prosumer's set.
Frustratingly for Prosumer, and the small crowd there to hear him play, the sound engineers failed to correctly wire his DJ station, making his first record – the Schatrax classic ‘Keep On Loving’ – cut out some 10 bars in, prompting the stylus to skip across his next record. He took it well, but the effect of white noise and iffy sound be deadly in a live setting.
"I thought this fella was supposed to be decent?" muttered a man stood beside me, demonstrating succinctly the difficulties DJs and musicians alike face when gear goes wrong.
Thankfully, Prosumer is "decent", quickly recovering to fill the cavernous tent with two hours of top shelf Chicago machine house, disco, and driving acid.
"That was so, so good," said Carl from Manchester, as French techno stalwart Laurent Garnier stepped up to take over till the end of the night. "My only complaint is, they should have put Prosumer in the woods. That would've been something very special indeed."
Laurent Garnier then began with big room selections, so we left the Late Night Pavilion and crossed the arena to Studio 6 where Andrew Weatherall and Ewan Pearson were beginning a 3-hour back-to-back set. With Weatherall in particular on form, playing the funky, sleazy techno he speaks so highly of, and 3am arrived considerably sooner than expected, and we were turfed out into the night to find a tent party.
We spent Saturday day admiring Portmeirion, cruising between the Stone Boat, Kraken Bar, and the Finders Keepers stage, where Andy Votel and friends were playing smoky, psychedelic folk, rock, and oddities the likes of which I've never heard. Repeatedly, we tried to get into the comedy tent, but each time we arrived it was heaving and we had to let it go.
That evening, we made for the main stage to watch our only headliner of the festival. Beck played a brilliant set of blistering, eccentric funk and pop, including crowd pleasers ‘Loser’ and a cover of Donna Summer's ‘I Feel Love.’
"I love Beck," Sarah from Liverpool, told me, while walking away from the main stage. "The only other live performer I prefer is Prince. God, it would be amazing if they got him here!"
On Sunday, far and away the hottest day of a mostly warm and dry weekend, Ashley Beedle and Jo Wallace curated a 'History of Black Music', while people frolicked on the hotel lawn. Some preferred to cool off in the crystal estuary waters, draw messages in the sand for passing aircraft, or commandeer paddle boards. Though others, including us, simply danced and skipped around, talking and smiling and drinking, acknowledging our good fortune.
"Look how beautiful this is," gushed Lucy, a flame haired legal secretary from Cambridge. "Truly, I've never been to a festival venue in the UK anywhere near as impressive as this."
Though far and above, the weekend’s most memorable moments took place in the woods, where four parties at the feet of high climbing pines were scored by, among others, the Futureboogie DJs, PBR Streetgang, Human Shield man Pete Mangalore, James Holroyd, Manchester's Rick Nicholls and Jonny Abstract – who run the Bohemian Grove night – and the Audio Farmers, joined in the Dug Out by the Hooping Harlets, a troupe of colourful hula-hoopers from Manchester who brought the carnival atmosphere from the village to the forest. But the pick of the litter was the Crazy P set on Sunday evening – played from a bandstand deep in the woodlands, from which ran a stream under a red bridge, quite like an impressionist painting, with blossom and dragon flies floating and buzzing in the breeze. As Paper Recordings classics a la Rune Lindbaek clattered off the pines, people danced on a one on one off stage floating in the stream.
It was as special as it gets, but an 8pm curfew brought it to an end. Attempts were made to rekindle the flames with James Holden's live set down by the estuary and Michael Mayer in the main arena, but both were rendered too dark and bland by the magic in the forest. The time had arrived to wind down, and take stock of a beautiful weekend.
The festival circuit is saturated at home and abroad, with multiple gatherings being convened each summer on boats and beaches, as well as the traditional opportunistic farmer's fields. To compete in this market takes ever more originality and vision, so it was probably inevitable someone would at least attempt to persuade the powers that be to allow events in Portmeirion.
The location for Festival No 6 is so special, practically any level of effort would have drawn a crowd, but the care and attention to detail applied to this project makes it a contender for one of the best British festivals around.
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