For anyone who's ever had the pleasure of spending their formative years caked in mud, dancing their hearts out to rave music in a field, Bulgaria's Meadows In The Mountains is worth considering for your 2018 summer rave. Now imagine that small, local rave with a bigger budget. And imagine it's not a waterlogged field in England, but a sun-kissed, pastoral mountainside. Yeah, that.
A major step-up from last year's (ca. 1-1,500 people), this year saw 2,000 ravers and lunatics descend on the sun-kissed mountains near the Bulgarian/Greek border. Thankfully, the local residents of the nearby village were more than gracious in catering to the (literal) great unwashed and the mutual respect made for the ideal way to party in the sun. Credit has to also be given to the festival organisers who used local timber to build most of the on-site structures and they've got their sights on completely banning plastic on site, so as to leave as little mark as possible on the Bulgarian mountainside.
That thoughtfulness was present throughout the festival, from the carefully-curated sets to the plethora of food and drink, the huge soundsystems and the towering wooden sculptures dotted around. These sculptures came courtesy of art installation crew Denture Disco who returned for their third year with their most impressive structure yet. In the past they created two massive sculptures for the festival, including the Trojan horse and a pirate ship. This year they outdid themselves with a giant dragon (all sourced and created from natural materials and wood from the forest) and which may or may not have breathed fire. Witnesses are unreliable at best.
Big VIP names were largely eschewed in favour of lesser known DJs who fitted together and each understood the tone of the festival. The highlights were frequent and varied — Anna Wall played a bright and bouncy selection to bring in the early hours of the morning on Saturday/Sunday; Marcus Barnes delivered an uplifting hour of groove-, funk- and soul-infused techno (despite being cruelly cut short); and we all got a nice surprise when the Just Jack billed on a small stage in the forest turned out not to be the "Starz In Their Eyes" guy, but a DJ from Bristol with a heart-racing jungle collection. As nice as it would have been to see Just Jack after all these years, a selection of teeth-grindingly dirty jungle was much more welcome; and then there was the wild, futuristic, tribal, thumping tunes from Irish selector Saoirse on the Sunrise stage, ringing in the actual sunrise as it cut through the dawn mist.
An iPhone could never do that justice, so keep scrolling through the pics for a professional rendering of the truly magical moment. And, of course, the obligatory gallery of sun-soaked hedonism.
