- Carlos Hawthorn takes in sets from 2 Bad Mice, Violet and more at the UK's favourite "dirty little rave."
- Field Maneuvers, like many electronic events, was born from a spirited dance floor conversation between two music fanatics. It was the early hours at the last-ever Big Chill festival in 2011, and friends Ele Beattie and Leon Cole were in a tent programmed by Tom Middleton, Richie Rundle and the journalist Joe Muggs. The lineup was amazing, but there weren't enough people there, a trend that had plagued the festival more generally that year. "There were all these great DJs playing in vast tents and it just felt so wrong," said Beattie, sat on a hay bale. "You never caught a vibe in there. So we just thought: 'we should do it.'"
Beattie and Cole are both from Oxford, so, for the first Field Maneuvers in 2013, they settled on a plot of land they knew well from their free-party raving days. A large grassy oblong with a backdrop of lush green trees along one side, the site belongs to a local character whose family rents fairground rides. Around 400 people—mostly friends of friends—came to the first edition, with sets from various artists who owed Beattie and Cole favours.
Five years later, the festival has doubled in capacity, though it's retained its community feel, thanks to a devoted crowd of old hippies, free-party ravers and clued-in 20-to-30-somethings. Many of the DJs, including big names like Ben Sims, Jane Fitz and Ryan Elliott, return year-on-year—there's even a competition between them for who's played the most. (With six each, Auntie Flo, Jade Seatle and Mark Archer currently lead.) Everyone I met seemed on a level in a way that only happens at very few events. On Saturday night, two friends were snuggling on a sofa in the 24-hour bar and three different strangers came up to them to ask if they needed anything.
In terms of music and production, Field Maneuvers was right up with the best of them. Save for one or two sets, the programming across the three dance stages was brilliant and diverse, powered by thumping sound and, especially in the main Field Maneuvers stage, dazzling visuals that gave the space real depth. The best of the three was Sputnik, a smoky geodesic dome that has to be one of the most unique rave spaces in the world. Once In A Blue Moon, a comfy tea tent with a near-enough round-the-clock ambient soundtrack, was new for 2018. While it didn't always work in there, the space acted as a useful crash pad during the weekend's many supremely chilled moments.
Perhaps most impressively of all, Field Maneuvers is a not-for-profit venture. Beattie and Cole both have full-time jobs, and many of the staff are volunteers. The combination of small capacity and big lineup makes making money difficult—any profit they do turn goes straight back into the event. "If it ended up becoming money-driven it would become a different thing for all of us," said Beattie. "We're doing it for the love."
Here are five key performances from Field Maneuvers 2018.
Ben Sims
Ben Sims is an integral member of the Field Maneuvers family—every January, he and his wife rendezvous with cofounder Ele Beattie and her husband Henry Morris (who also runs the festival) at Lakeside Leisure Complex to watch the darts. This sense of tradition extends to the festival, too, and on Friday night Sims took up position in Sputnik for the fourth year running. He played last as part of a Machine takeover, following fierce sets from Dr Rubinstein and Billy Nasty with 90 minutes of techno and house that skewed more colourful. Floaty breakbeats melted into heads-down stompers. A late airing of Floorplan's "Never Grow Old (Re-Plant)"—a track I thought I'd longed tired of hearing—felt fresh and thrilling, the poignancy of the late Aretha Franklin's thundering vocals fusing with the smoke and the lasers to transcendental effect.
Nick Höppner
As soon as Ben Sims wrapped up at Sputnik, most people decamped to the main stage, where Nick Höppner was treating the crowd to the last of the night's four-to-the-floor bombs. An hour later, he zipped up his USBs and ambled across the grass to Once In A Blue Moon, the festival's new ambient tent. Inside, dozens of legless ravers were sprawled across dodgy hippie print cushions, sofas and throws. Some sipped tea and munched on pesto toasties. (Later, the toasties crew were seen passing around weed vaporizers.)
Ambient tents, increasingly a feature of small festivals, are a tricky thing to get right. A simple thing like volume can determine whether it sinks or swims. Blue Moon wasn't always on-point throughout the weekend, but during Höppner's 90-minute set, the vibe was ideal. The volume was just right—quiet enough to talk, loud enough to enjoy the tunes—and the music, a mix of dub, reggae and other bits, nailed the sweet spot between cosy and uplifting. By the end, most of the room was gently head-nodding away.
Violet b2b Photonz
Of all the wicked lineups at all the stages, the most eye-catching might have been Sputnik on Saturday night. Brackles, playing a slew of slickly mixed classics from 4:30 PM, did a tidy job luring a solid crowd from their sunny slumber outside. By the time Violet and Photonz came on several hours later, the dome was rammed and jovial, full of sweaty ravers, inflatable bananas and all sorts of bonkers fancy dress. (One guy: black cloak, green witches' hat, Grim Reaper mallet.)
The two DJs, who also played back-to-back in 2017, whisked the atmosphere with slamming tracks heavy on Afro rhythms, kooky sounds and ravey breaks, like Scratcha DVA's "King" and DJ Normal 4's excellent remix of Alphonse's "Glint AM." Their mixing was superb, tight and perfectly judged so the momentum never slipped. For the final stretch, possibly with the next performer, Eris Drew, in mind, they transitioned into a swirl of hardcore rhythms, piano keys and Michael Jackson remixes (like Tony Moran's rework of "History"). Down to my left, as the DJs swapped over, a ceremony was taking place involving a kneeling man, a sword and a string of fairy lights.
2 Bad Mice
Sputnik is a killer venue for all the usual reasons—visceral sound, lasers, a shit-ton of smoke—but what makes it truly special is how it messes with your spatial perception. When it's packed and rocking in there, with the smoke machine on full blast, the feeling is one of overwhelming disorientation—you can't work out where the DJ is, let alone the way out. It takes the whole raving as escapism thing to a whole new level.
On Sunday morning, during 2 Bad Mice's delirious set of golden-era hardcore, the contours of the dome kept shifting—from curved walls to straight edges and back again—depending on the way the lights bounced off the architecture. This, combined with the blistering breakbeats and constant stream of spine-tingling piano lines, produced a scintillating atmosphere. People hugged each other tightly and hung off the dome's metal framing, going buck wild to hits like 2 Bad Mice's "Bomb Scare," One Tribe's "What Have You Done," Bizarre Inc's "Playing With Knives" and, what I think was the final tune, Prodigy's "Your Love." It was pure life-affirming euphoria, as close as many of us had ever come to experiencing a '90s field rave in all its glory.
Housework
After the madness of Saturday night, and with the sky a radiant blue, the vibe on Sunday was never going to be anything but horizontal. Housework, the Bristol party run by Shanti Celeste, Daisy Moon, Golesworthy and Gramrcy, has been involved in the festival since 2014, and at least one of the residents has played every year since. This time, though, Celeste was ill, Moon was at Dimensions and Gramrcy was in Morocco, leaving Golesworthy to handle the three-hour slot solo.
He did so with aplomb, expertly creeping from light funk and disco into jazzy house, before finishing with timeless US deep house. Only a handful danced while he played, including a woman in a sequined mermaid number who had been grooving to a portable speaker since 9 AM. Most people, myself included, lazed about on blankets and hay bales, sipping Bloody Marys and ice-cold pints while occasionally singing along to gorgeous tunes like "I Think I'm Falling In Love" by Leroy Hutson and Mr. G's "Daily Prayer." Like 95% of the DJs I heard at Field Maneuvers, Golesworthy read the mood perfectly.
Photo credit /
Jake Davis - All except Housework
Mike Massaro - Housework
Nick Höppner As soon as Ben Sims wrapped up at Sputnik, most people decamped to the main stage, where Nick Höppner was treating the crowd to the last of the night's four-to-the-floor bombs. An hour later, he zipped up his USBs and ambled across the grass to Once In A Blue Moon, the festival's new ambient tent. Inside, dozens of legless ravers were sprawled across dodgy hippie print cushions, sofas and throws. Some sipped tea and munched on pesto toasties. (Later, the toasties crew were seen passing around weed vaporizers.) Ambient tents, increasingly a feature of small festivals, are a tricky thing to get right. A simple thing like volume can determine whether it sinks or swims. Blue Moon wasn't always on-point throughout the weekend, but during Höppner's 90-minute set, the vibe was ideal. The volume was just right—quiet enough to talk, loud enough to enjoy the tunes—and the music, a mix of dub, reggae and other bits, nailed the sweet spot between cosy and uplifting. By the end, most of the room was gently head-nodding away.
Violet b2b Photonz Of all the wicked lineups at all the stages, the most eye-catching might have been Sputnik on Saturday night. Brackles, playing a slew of slickly mixed classics from 4:30 PM, did a tidy job luring a solid crowd from their sunny slumber outside. By the time Violet and Photonz came on several hours later, the dome was rammed and jovial, full of sweaty ravers, inflatable bananas and all sorts of bonkers fancy dress. (One guy: black cloak, green witches' hat, Grim Reaper mallet.) The two DJs, who also played back-to-back in 2017, whisked the atmosphere with slamming tracks heavy on Afro rhythms, kooky sounds and ravey breaks, like Scratcha DVA's "King" and DJ Normal 4's excellent remix of Alphonse's "Glint AM." Their mixing was superb, tight and perfectly judged so the momentum never slipped. For the final stretch, possibly with the next performer, Eris Drew, in mind, they transitioned into a swirl of hardcore rhythms, piano keys and Michael Jackson remixes (like Tony Moran's rework of "History"). Down to my left, as the DJs swapped over, a ceremony was taking place involving a kneeling man, a sword and a string of fairy lights.
2 Bad Mice Sputnik is a killer venue for all the usual reasons—visceral sound, lasers, a shit-ton of smoke—but what makes it truly special is how it messes with your spatial perception. When it's packed and rocking in there, with the smoke machine on full blast, the feeling is one of overwhelming disorientation—you can't work out where the DJ is, let alone the way out. It takes the whole raving as escapism thing to a whole new level. On Sunday morning, during 2 Bad Mice's delirious set of golden-era hardcore, the contours of the dome kept shifting—from curved walls to straight edges and back again—depending on the way the lights bounced off the architecture. This, combined with the blistering breakbeats and constant stream of spine-tingling piano lines, produced a scintillating atmosphere. People hugged each other tightly and hung off the dome's metal framing, going buck wild to hits like 2 Bad Mice's "Bomb Scare," One Tribe's "What Have You Done," Bizarre Inc's "Playing With Knives" and, what I think was the final tune, Prodigy's "Your Love." It was pure life-affirming euphoria, as close as many of us had ever come to experiencing a '90s field rave in all its glory.
Housework After the madness of Saturday night, and with the sky a radiant blue, the vibe on Sunday was never going to be anything but horizontal. Housework, the Bristol party run by Shanti Celeste, Daisy Moon, Golesworthy and Gramrcy, has been involved in the festival since 2014, and at least one of the residents has played every year since. This time, though, Celeste was ill, Moon was at Dimensions and Gramrcy was in Morocco, leaving Golesworthy to handle the three-hour slot solo. He did so with aplomb, expertly creeping from light funk and disco into jazzy house, before finishing with timeless US deep house. Only a handful danced while he played, including a woman in a sequined mermaid number who had been grooving to a portable speaker since 9 AM. Most people, myself included, lazed about on blankets and hay bales, sipping Bloody Marys and ice-cold pints while occasionally singing along to gorgeous tunes like "I Think I'm Falling In Love" by Leroy Hutson and Mr. G's "Daily Prayer." Like 95% of the DJs I heard at Field Maneuvers, Golesworthy read the mood perfectly. Photo credit / Jake Davis - All except Housework Mike Massaro - Housework