Festival review: Doune the Rabbit Hole

While the bands didn’t always arrive on time, there were plenty of weird and wonderful sights, sounds - and smells - at the Doune the Rabbit Hole festival in the Carron Valley, as Elaine O’Connor discovered...

“Time... you see, once you’re in the rabbit hole, time can be anything; it’s just a concept,” says the woman at the production office.

We’ve been at Doune the Rabbit Hole for about half an hour, and pity must be afforded to the poor attendants on the receiving end of my entirely vicious hangover.

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The whole atmosphere could perhaps best be described as lackadaisical: there’s one girl who spends a good three hours just wandering around, asking if anyone has a nail; there are children being pushed around in wheelbarrows; there are all manner of substances in the air.

But the fact that so many volunteers have pulled together to make this happen should really be recognised (and it’s much easier to be appreciative of that when you’ve had some lovely sleep and no more cider). It’s also important to say this is a genuinely family-friendly festival; I’ve never seen so many kids at one before, and they are having a ball.

However, the stage times issue... In all honesty, I can’t imagine anyone who’s forked out for a music festival on the basis of the line-up being too happy about not knowing when any of the bands are actually on stage. It also makes it pretty hard to, you know, review bands.

By the Sunday afternoon, some girls produce large signs for each tent with approximate times on them. It seems a little late - and even then, there are last minute cancellations or just errors in the advertised line-up.

Like the original line-up post, which led me to tell folk to see Holy Mountain who, unless I seriously missed something, don’t actually seem to be here at all; or the fact that Young Fathers are in the programme and on the guides helpfully produced by Tenement TV, but mysteriously disappear from the bill before they’re supposed to play that stage on the Sunday (there’s every chance they could have popped up elsewhere, but they didn’t, to my knowledge).

SATURDAY

Anyway, having arrived on the Saturday due to a prior engagement on the Friday night (guttingly, missing the likes of The Phantom Band and Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat) it’s time to try and see some bands.

Despite trying to show up for them at the right time, we manage to miss the majority of Teen Canteen’s set - which is a shame because they sound great as we arrive. To finish things off they bust out a Kylie Minogue cover, ‘All The Lovers’, which sounds surprisingly good on real instruments with a Scottish accent - and I’m pretty protective of Kylie. It’s a good start to the day.

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If there’s one band you probably would find down the rabbit hole, it’s The Plimptons. This was never going to be boring. There are wigs. There are giant fuzzy dice. There are games and fun and good tunes and an amazing tie and running around and dancing and who gives a damn if it’s pouring down outside, let’s just have a good time singing about wanting to have a dance. That does feel better.

Tucked into a stage, in the middle of the trees, are Blank Canvas; we are eaten alive by midges which must look strange to them on stage - everyone in the audience frantically scratching their heads to the sounds of ‘By the Fire’. It’s a real shame there are not more people here to see them, because this is such a promising little set - fantastic vocals, and everything coming together in shambolic surroundings.

I had scribbled down that Withered Hand were due to start at 6pm. We happen to be walking towards the stage at about 5.30pm and I can already hear ‘New Dawn’. It’s a mudstrewn affair and it is tipping it down, but they pull in the most responsive crowd yet. One guy is determinedly singing along even to songs which have just been written. It is fantastic. Members of the Second Hand Marching Band lend their voices and beef up the instrumentation on set-closer, ‘Religious Song’, as people in front of the stage waltz with each other.

We pop up to watch a bit of Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard, before King Creosote, who goes down well with the family crowd.

What was advertised as Blurt Vs Fur Hood seems to have become just Fur Hood, who perform a short set of ear-stripping noise (actually, just what I needed) before coming back on stage as part of karaoke band, Pulse. We’re informed we’re about to party, whether we like it or not, and the band tears, with help of various crowd members, through the likes of ‘Suspicious Minds’, ‘I Will Survive’ and ‘Like a Virgin’. This is much better than it has any right to be. We are about to party. Good work.

SUNDAY

After losing the end of Saturday night in the midst of karaoke, on Sunday we are jolted back to reality with the sobering news that a 74-year-old man has sadly gone missing from a nearby farm.

It’s difficult not to feel like a prat for enjoying yourself when something so serious has happened; a police incident van is set up outside the festival grounds in the hope that he might be found there, but there is no news during the day. The whole site is a lot quieter, with many of yesterday’s families having headed home.

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On the stages, we stumble across the start of Easy, Tiger!’s set at the Baino. Like quite a few acts, the full tent prompts them to turn their soundcheck into the first song of their set. We’re informed of the importance of punctuation (don’t call them ‘Easy Tiger’) and are treated to a song about the bus routes of Glasgow. It’s a gentle route in to Sunday’s festivities.

Down at the main stage the Second Hand Marching Band have attracted a respectable crowd, despite some questionable patter, and even manage to goad them into dancing merrily along. Ranging from upbeat to wistful, they put in a very nice set.

North American War, crashing noisily into the likes of ‘Ivory And’, are in stark contrast sonically speaking to such things but no less enjoyable. It’s good to hear such raucous guitars after a more laid-back start to the day; making us wake the hell up, really.

Swapping back to the main stage like a yo-yo, Rainbow Fisher are a sunny little act, well suited to the great outdoors and enjoying their set. I am worried, though, that a large amount of the crowd might take the notions of ‘By the Sea’ literally and actually decide to go and live in nice little caves once they make their way out of the rabbit hole.

“We’re normally this miserable, it’s not just the tent,” Olympic Swimmers’ Susie Smillie says. It’s a bit of a different group - they’ve co-opted Andy McGlone from Holy Mountain to fill in for Graeme Smillie on bass. They’re one of the acts to express concern for the missing man and things don’t seem entirely happy. But a man in the crowd assures them, despite this, that they “sound amazing” - and he’s not wrong. Something about them, the stirring soundscape, her vocals, escapes the muddy confines of the tent and the sadness of the other situation.

After a hunt for some final pints (a bar is closing, at 5pm, during a festival) and a bizarre few moments when lots of people confusingly move around large pieces of wood, a loud burst of noise tells us that it’s time for Galoshins - who turn out to be the most enjoyable set of the weekend, despite suffering an early amp problem. They make an amazing, glorious din, produce the first legitimate moshpit of the festival, make everyone join in a climactic ‘ohhhhhhh’ and have to fend off what become some almost aggressive demands for “one more tune”.

Human Don’t Be Angry take the stage as the light starts to dim, a big draw in the tent. As a live beast, it’s quite different to HDBA recordings, and tonight it’s very pleasant to let it wrap around you, with the sunset in the distance outside the packed tent.

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We drift away from the Rabbit Hole - managing to miss a few more bands, unfortunately - it was just that cut-off time. There are lots of good things about Doune; but the general shambles suggests a closer attention to organisation needs to be recognised for the positive effect it would have, rather than a threat to its ethos.

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