The Wickerman Festival 2009

Katie Sutherland of Pearl and the Puppets. Photos Stephen McLeod

For those of you not familiar with the movie which inspired this festival in the Scottish borders (apparently it’s not the borders according to the locals, but to a Glaswegian, it’s definitely at the border), the gist is this:

Police inspector goes to visit disappearance in strange community, ends up being burned in a giant wicker man as part of some strange pagan ritual.

Everything you could want in a musical festival really. Come midnight on the Saturday, everyone gathers on a hill opposite the hill on which the wickerman has stood ominously for the weekend, and as the fire-dancers spin and the fireworks go off and the flares shoot into the sky, the towering figure (the design of which changes every year) is torched. The first time I witnessed this spectacle, there were thousands of people behind me chanting “BURN HIM BURN HIM”, which was more than slightly un-settling. The main event is never the same twice as well, with last year seeing a heavy haar (fog) come down across the site; giving an even eerier edge to the whole proceedings.

As well known Scottish DJ and new music champion Jim Gellatly said in passing to me – the Wickerman’s the sort of festival that it wouldn’t matter who was playing; people would still come.. and it’s completely true. The lineup in the past few years has been a bizarre mix of the Utah Saints, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Idlewild, KT Tunstall, Gary Numan, and this year’s headliners The Human League, and it was something that used to be seen as a negative point when considering which festival of many to spend your hard earned cash on. However, word of the Wickerman’s laid-back attitude and… festival atmosphere is spreading. This year saw a rise in ticket-sales, and much more of the 18-15 age group, which seemed to be lacking before now – with the demographic being primarily families and people in their late 20s.

With such an increase in popularity, it might be tough for the Wickerman to keep a hold of its infamous healthy disrespect for rules – the press pack I was sent out actually said – “At the Wickerman we’re not the biggest enforcer of rules”. Things had been tightened up though, with the previous free-for-all attitude to taking your own alcohol into the arena being shelved, and other minor things. To be fair though, it was all a bit of an inevitability, and if you wanted to stick a bottle or two down your trousers you could still get in without the full-cavity search of other events.

I wandered around and actually managed to watch full-sets of some acts, which I rarely get the chance to do when working at festivals. Some of the best amongst the lot were Punch and the Apostles, who were a messy, obscure bunch of trumpets and guitars; near onstage fisticuffs and general mayhem; Luva Anna, with their songs about having intimate relations with girls in comas and wishes for lochs of whisky; and the rather gorgeous Katie Sutherland of Pearl and the Puppets, who manages to have the nice bits of Amy MacDonald’s voice, without sounding (or indeed looking) like a man.

It’s a festival you really need to go and see to understand. Even when you’re working it doesn’t feel like it. It’s a festival to go to with friends, chill out, get very intoxicated, and have the music as the backdrop to the whole thing. Just as a festival should be. (It’s just a shame they didn’t actually burn the police inspector)

Check out the photos of live acts from the Wickerman Festival 2009 after the jump.