ROTW 2014
05 August 14
Posted at 6:40
Rhythms Of The World, Hitchin's splendid two day festival of music and much more, returned at the weekend after an enforced break last year. The festival, which started life as a street festival held in a mutlitude of venues across the town became so popular and big that it had to move to a single location. In 2012 the festival, which was a storming success (excuse the pun) was marred a little by torrential rain preceeding the event and causing a two hour delay on the Saturday. However that did not deter from a fantastic festival, run 100% by volunteers and attracting artists and talent from across the world and particularly a big presence from Beds, Herts and Bucks. The festival on top of the heavy rain caused so much damage to the grounds of the venue, Hichin Priory, that access for 2013 was denied. In a way understandable as the Priory serves as an event and wedding venue throughout the year.
However 2014 saw the return of ROTW to the Priory, no doubt after much arm twisting and praying for good weather. The event boasts six stages in addition to family areas, healing fields, bars, food outlets etc. There is no camping, perhaps a good thing, but the festival, considering it is totally run by a army of volunteers is both a credit to them and the town.
This year the first act on the mainstage was the Sir Walter J Wallis Band.
Sir Walter, who doubled as compare on the main stage for much of the weekend, invited a lad name of Charlie to come up on stage and officially open the festival. Reluctant at first Charlie soon got over stage fright to did a good job of opening the show. The organisers aim to make the festival a family event and they do a briliant job of catering for families, children of all ages, old rockers, young rockers, hipsters, clubbers and ravers and even some classical music. Music lovers of every generation and genre are catered for. I flitted between stages but shot mostly at the BBC Introducing Stage hosted by Gareth Lloyd of BBC Three Counties Radio. Below is a flavour of the festival - more to come in future blogs.
Phili 'N' Dotz
Kool Hertz
Kill Confirmed
Joe Savage - Kill Confirmed
Tommy Savage - Kill Confirmed
Tommy Savage head bang
CC Smugglers
Indi Forde
Black Noise
Young dancer
Zaheer the Producer
Rapper with Zaheer
Crazy World of Arthur Brown
The God of Hellfire
Arthur Brown
Another of Zaheer's Crew
Black Noise
Joe Savage - guitar face
Arthur again.
More pics of more acts in a day or two