Festival watch
Date: 24.08.2010.
Where many festivals call upon one’s powers of endurance, Croatia’s Garden is geared towards indulgence. One of a series of dance festivals to have been established in the coastal village of Petrcane, fast becoming an eastern European Ibiza, this twoweekend jamboree finds a mostly British crowd jetting over for a programme of house, funk and soul. If the line-up wasn’t exactly overburdened with big names, then it was pleasing to see lesser-known acts grab the spotlight in style: hippie hipster NYC collective the Phenomenal Handclap Band proved to be
Saturday’s highlight, while audible sighs of appreciation greeted falsetto crooner
Mayer Hawthorne (left) and his Motown pop. On Sunday, disco revivalists Hercules and Love Affair traded flirtatious badinage for cigarettes in a display of lascivious showmanship every bit as colourful as transsexual diva Aerea Negrot’s tangerine jumpsuit, before Berlin producer Henrik Schwarz brought proceedings to a head with jazzy tech-house. But this was a festival whose most memorable moments were rooted in ambience rather than musicianship: basking in a spectacular sunset while dancing at the beach-front bar or catching the breeze on one of the twice-daily boat parties, where a set from Liverpool’s No Fakin DJs climaxed in a mass rendition of “You’ve Got the Love”. Best act Hercules and Love Affair. Overheard “Seriously, who
needs football when you’ve got disco?” as the dreary matter of a certain sports match caused a delay to the Hercules and Love Affair set. Best discovery Soul boy Mayer Hawthorne.
Hugh Montgomery
Hugh stayed at Hotel Diadora,
Punta Skala (http://www.falkensteiner.com/en/hotel/diadora), and
flew with Croatia Airlines
(www.croatiaairlines.com/Default.aspx?alias=www.croatiaairlines.com/en)
