Georgina Cook runs the excellent Drumz of the South blog, and takes photos for FACT and more. Turn to page 2 to view Georgina’s photos from Hideout 2014.
I spent the first 24 hours walking around Croatia’s holiday brochure-beautiful Island of Pag thinking it was Topshop by Sea, dodging the new wave Brits abroad and slipping on bits of kebab.
New wave Brits abroad: naked and sun burnt as usual, but in the case of those visiting for Hideout Festival – buff not beer-bellied, muscles on muscles as opposed to wobble on folds. I overheard Stamina MC say that when he was young, guys were either skinny or they were fat. Times have changed. I’d never seen as much skin or vanity as this before: bikini-clad ladies with false eyelashes and platform jellies; lads topless amidst the “Please do not take your shirt off” signs cos they’re too ‘ard to care.
The Hideout festival site is Zrce beach, a bay cocooned by blue mountains, cartoon clouds, bright skies and a clear turquoise sea. It’s home to a handful of 24 hour bars, four of which, Aquarius, Papaya, Europhia and Kalypso – as well as a load of boat parties – host the week’s programme of dance music. The embarrassment of being a Brit abroad dies off on Zrce; a hedonistic bubble of cheap cocktails and laughing gas, where girls walking around in their knickers doesn’t feel as weird as it does in town.
For me, the party started on Tuesday, during Oneman’s set at Kalypso – ‘Let me be your Fantasy’ and a blissed out crowd. Skream’s boat party the next day was fun too: a girl pretended to be a horse, MK chatted to the crowd, the boat disembarked. I headed back to Zrce for the FACT party, snapped some pics of Joy Orbison and a crowd dancing to the setting sun, caught up with some friends and heard stories of whats-his-name k-holing and of Skream pretending it was his birthday at a local restaurant.
Other highlights included Dismantle’s set at Europhia and Rodigan’s Ram Jam, largely because they, like Oneman, played something other than 4×4, which dominated the week. It was those moments that prevented me from feeling like a rave granny the entire time. A conversation with a fellow journalist about the origins of the festival and how the music and target audience are purposefully niche made me feel better about the whole surreal affair though. The 10,000 people in attendance are, for the most part, house lovers aged 20-30 and it’s nothing less than an admirable operation to contain them on a small beautiful beach for a week with permission to have the time of their lives – with or without their clothes.
