I decided to sit in front of the ride taking us to BOOM land. Whatever it was that had cause me to puke all over the same spot of the airport twice already this morning didn’t seem like it was settling anytime soon. All I could hope now was that I could make it to the festival without further disruption. The last heave contained the grapes I had for breakfast. There was nothing else I could have possibly left to bring up, aside from the water I was drinking in attempt to reconcile for the amount I was heavily sweating. The other passengers were an Austrian chap, a gorgeous couple from Sweden, a Dutch guy and of course me. The vomiting Englishman dressed in a Screamadelicha t-shirt, Chelsea FC 3 quarter length shorts and an England bucket hat. I couldn’t be anymore of a stereotype unless I got the car in full swing of a sing along of Vindaloo and stopped to start a fight outside a Portuguese café.
I spewed up once out the car window but refused to let the driver stop so as not to disrupt my fellow passengers. Then when we stopped at a supermarket a very suspicious looking security guard followed me into the toilets where I managed to puke up the remainder of the red wine we had for dinner the night previously ‘our wine here is very strong, no?’ said the geezer at the sink basin next to me. ‘if only it was the wine mate’ I replied. The mean looking security guard followed my pale sweating self around the shop, then I stopped to ask a pretty young lady in her best broken English where the nearest chemist was. She tried her best to explain where the nearest medical centre was, but I knew I wasn’t even going to try and make my way there.
We were dropped at what was technically the front gate of the festival. I picked up my backpack and the 2 packs of shopping for the festival and immediately started to wonder just how I was going to make it to meet Paya and Chris at the festival site. Those 2 had seemed to have already made it, but were clearly steaming drunk by the sound of their correspondence by text. Whilst waiting in line to get our wristbands I felt a shadow come over me and again I spewed what was ever left in my guts up. This time growing ever the more alarmed as it was indeed only the water I had been drinking the last few hours to keep myself hydrated. ‘Are you ok man?’ said the Austrian geezer who was in the car with me. ‘I dunno whats wrong with me mate’ was all I could reply. He then told me he might have something that could help me. Then went into his bag and sure enough the cunt may as well have been a pharmacist with all the different boxes of pills and remedies he had in there. He popped out half dozen small pills from a blister pack and told me to start with one then if I still felt rough double the dose. They were anti nausea pills designed to tell my guts to get itself in gear. Exactly what I needed.
After a little bit of confusion on the gate with my ticket being both a Boom and Utopia ticket I finally received my wristband. ‘How far to the festival site’ I asked the bird on the gate… ‘17km’ she replied. I repeated her answer in disbelief. ‘Yea but you’re not expected to walk, just hitchhike’ So that’s what I did and in minutes my Austrian friend had us in the back of a campervan with a lovely German couple. I dozed on their bed as we drove very slowly bumper to bumper down the dirt track towards the festival. The vision of Idana nova looking like that of the Serengeti as the fiery sun started to lower over it. One thing I did notice, I was starting to feel loads better.
My new Austrian friend gave me a shake to tell me that we be better off walking from here. The traffic was heavy and our friends in the car were being lead off in a different direction to the festival. So off I went on foot. Just another 8km I was promised. Considering I had no food, was tackiling some strange virus and was probably verging on dehydration and had to carry almost 40 kilos worth of stuff on my arms and back, and the light had now faded to pitch black, this was going to be a challenge.
Along the dark road I stopped for my first piss of the day and was caught up by 2 hot German birds and an Italian guy. I didn’t know what the situation was at the time, but one of the birds was this fella’s missus, and they had met whilst living in London. The other hot number was again just a random on our seemingly endless pilgrimage. They offered to carry my bags for some of the journey, then we spent a lot of it singing pop songs in accapella until we found the dirt track that was sure to lead us to the festival site. ‘Just another 4km’ the man assured us…. How long that walk was I don’t think I’d ever know.
Patience was starting to wear thin and faith was beginning to get lost until we decided to stop and relax and massage one another. I remember that around Europe there was currently a meteorite shower in progress. So when I found myself sandwiched between 2 German hardbodies one massaging me whilst I massaged the other, looking up this cosmic wonder on this clear night, nearing the end of this arduous pilgrimage to commence this incredible festival I triumphantly thought to myself ‘Well I’ve had worse journeys’
The bird from the couple injured her ankle and hitched a ride the rest of the way with her boyfriend, leaving me with a growingly disgruntled German hottie, who herself had lost all patience and asked every motor that passed if they could give us a ride. We jumped in the back of a van of a gorgeous Belgian couple. The bloke showed us all the art work he’d made whilst traveling the world. The whole ordeal left me feeling like I was fleeing some kind of conflict, not really knowing where we were going when infact we was on our to something special and that again put my situation into perspective.
We’d got through the festival gates and just as I was trying to contact Phil, Paya had awoken from a drunken haze and agreed to come meet me. By this point the German hardbody had lost interest and said her goodbyes. I finally met Paya with an embrace. After 14 hours of driving, puking, walking, hitching rides and worrying whether I’d actually make it alive I exclaimed to him with my head in his chest with all earnest ‘That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done’… Boom certainly made me work for it this year.
Looking forward to flicking my pop up tent into action, jumping in and getting some much needed rest, Paya suddenly realized that he didn’t know where the campsite actually was. After a few attempts of wondering off into the woods for what seemed like ages, he conceded that he couldn’t find the campsite. So for the first night I slept by a path, cursing not following Dr Phil’s directions to come find his campsite, which would no doubt be far superior to anything we’d have constructed anyway. Paya did buy me a falafel to go to bed with though, although my stomach had shrunk so much by this point I couldn’t finish it. I awoke to the sound of him and Chris outside the following morning and again we went looking for our illusive campsite.
It appeared that in their drunken stupor the boys had chosen pitch our camp right dead in the centre of the wooded area on the hill. This would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact we weren’t actually under any shade and nearly every attempt either of us made to find the campsite ended with us conceding that we was lost. It took a good few days until I discovered a fail-safe path that would lead us to our beds.
Now those of you who know me would have heard me bleat on about how much of a special experience BOOM 2014 was. If you didn’t read it my review for that year here it is. To this day it is one of my favourite and most read entries. Then the 3 brothers Boom consisted of Sam, Chris and myself. This year Paya was our 3rd musketeer a friend of mine who like Chris I had grown closer to since our last Boom together. It was Chris’ 4th time at the festival, Paya’s 3rd and my second, between us we have over 100 festivals worth of experience spanning a decade. We are veterans and professionals and above all else a class team when put together. Which was just one of the many reasons why I was already considering Boom 2016 to be the jewel in the crown of my unique summer.
The Boom land is set on a remote national park resembling an Oasis near the town of Idanha Nova, in between both the Spanish border and the capital of Lisbon. The Boom organisers have had the land under lease for the last few festivals, but had recently made it abundantly clear they intend to buy the land permantley by September. This year saw the festival make the controversial decision to cap tickets at 30,000, 10,000 less then the previous festival. Tickets this year sold out in just under a month. Completely unprecedented for a festival that is known for being able to turn up at the front door of and buy a ticket. A testament to the festivals ever growing legacy no doubt? The welcoming programme boasted visitors from over 150 countries conversing in almost 100 different languages, however when on site all sign posts and workshops are in English and I didn’t meet an attendee or worker who’s English weren’t absolutely impeccable. Each event Boom invites a guest nation for cut price and sometimes even free tickets to attend the festival. This year it was Japan and sure enough I noticed quite a few Japanese ravers roaming around.
It’s huge lake punctuating the centre of the festival and it’s woodland surroundings give both ideal shade for campers and the chance to cool off whenever the dry Portuguese heat gets a bit much, and that can sometimes be way into the late 30’s. The average day is usually about 35 Celsius. But as I say they cater with plenty of shaded areas, with the food court even being cooled by huge set of industrial fans in its centre.
Seeing as I was coming over an illness I spent most of ‘Day zero’ just sipping lemonade and strolling around with the boys getting our bearings. The only addition of stages this year being a traditional Portugesse dance stage called ‘Nataraj’ which was opposite The Luminal village. A place that we’d told ourselves we’d spend a lot of time this year taking in talks. It also seemed like a great place to get an afternoon siesta – which was to become a bit of a theme as the week went on.
We’d managed to find our boy Dr Phil and automatically felt ashamed of our excuse for a camp site as he had managed to piece together a fine shaded structure on a hill with two hammocks set up for him and his beautiful girlfriend Lisa. He assured us his tent was only to be used as a closet for the festival. Again I regretted my decision of letting those 2 drunken bastards find our campsite. We considered moving base but were too far away. Plus it looked like the Doctor had a nice love nest with his bird here and they probably would have preferred some privacy. Despite the 3 of us being clear festival veterens who have camped out in all conditions, I think time we owe it to ourselves to put a bit more effort into our camp.
Day zero of Boom is exactly what it says on the tin. No music or events as such going on just a load of tribes gathering to set up their camps and gather their bearings. I do also remember during this period having my first heart stopping, breathtaking moment of the festival. We was walking back from the far side of the festival as the lake curves round forming the healing areas. Dominating the view of the lake was a huge pagoda and in the distance was the sound of classic Spanish guitar being strummed beautifully, then just as we past the obstructing pagoda there was the man with the Spanish guitar, just hitting a high note and around him was people dancing, folk frolicking in the lake or just generally chilling out, all to the back drop of an absolutely beautiful sunset. One of those moments that aint justified as words on paper, but at the time it really took my breath away and will stick in my memory forever as one of those moments of unrehearsed natural beauty.
One of the many advantages of holding a festival in the beautiful country of Portugal is not just it’s stunningly beautiful and hospitable people, or the fact that its cheaper then most other western European destinations, it’s also convenient that its drug laws are one of the most liberal and progressive in the world. Meaning that drugs are seen as a health issue and not that of a criminal one. Personal amounts are to all intents and purposes legal, making Boom one of the most drug occupied festivals I have ever attended, and yes I include that above the bender apocalypse that is the Bangface weekender. If the dealers walking around with cardboard signs of their particular wears, or camp sites with their signs of what particular chemical or plant they had in stock was a way to score, then apparently just sitting next to your tent and waiting for them to come to you was just as good. In just under an hour we had a gram of opium and MDMA from an exotic Italian lady, and I had a few pills from a shadier looking Greek fella. This was not an issue though, because although I was dubious by the man Boom also offers a free drug testing facility on site, where for a small dose of the drugs you have just bought they will test its purity and report back as to whether what you have paid for is legit. Scoring the likes of hash and grass was never a problem. Chris seemed to never be able to say no to any dealer that crossed his path. I think we must have amounted to over an ounce of hash and weed between the lot of us by the end of the week.
The one problem with buying drugs at Boom however is that you have to expect pay top end premium prices for everything. A gram of coke was €100, weed €10 in the gram, hash about the same, opium €50 a gram, pills were €20 for 3, MDMA was €50 a gram also and a tab of LSD was again €10. I think the speed the lads got was also €20 I also bought some mushrooms for €40 and a pure DMT joint for €50. Beers are €2 for 300ml can and food was capped at its previous price of €7 a meal, although it was the €6 pizzas that saved us most of that weekend. There is no limit on how much booze you can bring into the festival but we were later to learn that even sprits don’t really keep well in 50-degree tents. So unless you’re willing to smuggle across borders or you have friends already there the drink and drug bill for an 8 day festival is always going to be a high one. But one thing I did experience was that all the gear we got our hands on was good!
So all settled in for the official opening of the festival we spent our afternoon necking a few Sagres we thought we’d get our heads down in the Luminal Village to listenin to a few talks and have a siesta. It be like falling asleep with the radio on I thought. One of the first talks I remember us listening to was a Q&A with a range of the festival organizers. One in particular who popped up at other talks over the week was a soft but very well spoken Portugesse man who seemed to be one of the main organisers of it all. The Q&A was in truth a bit of a wasted opportunity to be honest, but the highlights had to be the likes of a holier then though vegan complaining about the festival selling meat and another guy who wanted to ask for non smoking areas at some of the tents… the response to both was somewhere along the lines of ‘We support your decision and try our best to cater for your choice… but its you’re choice. We’re not here to tell people what to do at Boom, we do not back prohibition, if someone is doing something you don’t like just ask them and I’m sure they will stop it for you, that’s what our community is’ Then the more hilarious question being from a paranoid English coke head who’s question was along the lines of ‘give me a yes or no answer! Are there undercover police here at Boom? And if there are what are they looking for?… Save me your psychedelic jibber jabber just give me a yes or no answer!’ to which the guy cooley responded ‘you know there are police up there by the main gates, if they want to come in we cant stop them, just like the media have the right of free press. I will assure you though the police in this country are more liberal to what you may be used to in North America, other parts of Europe or Australia’ If I wasn’t busy trying to nap I would have asked about the ticketing system and how some people who canceled last minute were unable to sell their ticket on to genuine buyers. Although I understand the reasoning of trying to stam out touts, there must be a better solution around this then for 2 genuine ravers wanting to attend the party.
But overall the organisers laid down the guidelines pretty clearly. There are no specific set of rules at Boom there’s just suggestions to help the community thrive better and for some reason they just work. You are asked politely to put your litter in the bin and the festival is absolutely spotless. They ask you not to use your phone on the dancefloor as it disrupts the energy of the space, so people leave the tent to give their friends a text. They ask you to respect the environment by using the toilets and not pissing or shitting in the lake and people just do it. I don’t know how exactly they achieve this by simply just asking attendees to do so and I dunno what the likes of Glastonbury have to do to for their festival to get over its horrendous litter and pollution problem, but Boom have got it down. And they’ve achieved it by simply asking nicely.
Another interesting talk was from of the head honcho’s of the festivals ‘Kosmicare’ service. Linked closely to the drug testing service at the festival, Kosmicare is made up of professionals in drugs, psychology, medicine and partying. A tent that resembles a hippy refugee camp, where anybody having a bad one or getting a bit flustered by the whole experience can go and chill out in safe hands. The initiative then uses the data of what may cause these experience to give us better understanding of the drugs themselves and how they work on the human brain. The initiative is backed by both the police and the studies are undertaken by a local university, it’s also funded by the Portuguese government. I kind of hoped to have a bad trip just so I could end up in there one night and get a hug off a hippy.
I’d nodded off for one of the talks which was basically people coming forward with their projects and signing people up to help. Everything from horticultural projects in South America, to lucrative water purifying exhibitions in Africa. Would have kind of liked to have been awake for that one, seemed like a lot of cool humanitarian opportunities.
So siesta’d for the evening we got our food into our bellies, Chris found out Gin don’t keep well in a hot tent for a full day and the two of us dropped acid and went to watch Kalya Scintilla open the Alchemy circle. An artist recommended to us by the Doctor, and sold to us as a Psy-Dub producer. Now I aint one for Dub personally, I can take it or leave it but on the sound sytems they have at Boom and with the vibe that party brings this set was incredible. I think the fact the guy is a pioneer and progressive of the genre also helps, but whilst were left standing there being blown of our feet by the well tuned bass and wicked remix of Nina Simones ‘Feeling Good’ a chorus of ‘Fuck Boomtown!’ came from the 3 of our mouths in unison. A phrase that was repeated again and again as the week went on.
With Chris tripping balls and every bit of music he was hearing tickling his taste buds we stopped by the Dance Temple, later renamed ‘The Terror Temple’ by our German friends, most likely because as I’ve mentioned in previous posts Psy-trance by night is a terrifying experience. As we admired our surroundings we made our way over to the Sacred Fire stage, an area which to the psy-trance tourist such as us acts as a safe haven from the over encumbering pounding trance that dictates the rest of the lineup. The stage hosts live world bands and a few DJ’s too. This evening in particular was a whole host of the finest afro-beat and world on offer. I couldn’t pin point what music was exactly playing, but we sat there on those benches in this idyllic setting soaking it all in.
I sat there tripping and nursing my lager whilst watching Paya mong out on the bench opposite me after making himself sick from belting almost half a bottle of tequila at a rate I’d seen no man do before and then there was Chris vibed up so hard it felt like he had the power to make the world turn on its axis at his own will. Chris is one of those people that when he gets into party mode he is truly unstoppable. Kieth Richards, Kieth Moon and Ollie Reed wouldn’t be able to hold this man down in the midst of one of his raving supernovas and his energy is infectious, attracting the attention of those around us who would approach his wild, manically grinning face to give him a high five or give him a thumbs up for making their night all that more better. After almost a year of not sharing the dance floor with the geezer, it was a pleasure to see get him in such mode so early on in the festival. Shirtless and feral, oozing positivity his raving aura enveloped everyone who entered it and I lapped it up in my front row seat for the 3 whole hours we sat there. I realized at this point that for the first time on my entire Odyssey this was the first time that I felt like I was genuinely on holiday. Relaxing with my mates and enjoying the environment and vibe of the first night of a very special festival.
Chris offered me another tab of acid but I declined, seeing as he’d just dropped his he thought he may aswell go all out and neck the 3rd. With a gram of speed on his person and a dollop of opium for good measure we lost the beast to the party. Paya went to find a hammock to sleep in and I walked the site looking at things, enjoying the song of the shagging frogs in the ponds down by the healing areas and admiring the art installations scattered around the place. The cold starts to roll in at about 5am at Boom, so much so that unless you’re under shelter you really need to stick a shirt on. So I headed back to my bed to try and get some rest before the heat of the sun destroyed any chance of that happening.
If you’re not sheltered properly at Boom you can expect to be forced out of bed by 11am. I tried the trick of taping some foil survival blankets over my tent but they kept falling off. Despite even perfecting this it will only give you an extra hour or so. I learnt this the hard way the Boom previous whilst having a cuddle with a pretty girl in my tent, only to have to bale due to the heat getting too hot.
Our obligatory breakfast at the festival was always Acai ice cream with granola. For 5 euro you have yourself a refreshing, filling and powering breakfast that is easy to swallow and cures all hangovers and comedowns. We wondered where Chris’ night might have lead him. We laughed at how if anybody was to find him in the condition we left him in, no one would be able to decipher where exactly he was from from his thick Glaswegian dialect. We also decided what to do if we weren’t able to find him. Deciding that we’d give it till lunchtime before asking down at Kosmicare as to whether they’d taken in an entity resembling an incoherent Glaswegian burn out. Luckily though as we were having this conversation we heard our names called and there in the distance was Chris laying flat on his back with his arm in the air, still shirtless from the night before, can of beer next to his head. Apparently he had gone for a lie down in the shade after a night of heavy dancing and had pricked his ears when hearing us ramble by.
Chris wasn’t able to keep his acai down that morning, then later admitted he almost had a panic attack when heading to the bar to get the beers in. He looked like a man who needed a siesta and stat! So again we made our way to the luminal village where again we lay listening to a panel natter on about something or other. I don’t remember which order we listened to what but lets just say one of the highlights was a panel of people who were about during the glory days of Goa trance in the 90’s. With a friendly and genuine Italian man regaling us of tales of the days when the parties never ended, the women wore no clothes and the acid was always a guaranteed great trip. Then there was another fascinating panel from a group of organisers from psy parties from all over the world, with our man from earlier fronting the discussion just like before. Everything discussed was from the hearts of people who had nothing but the purpose of the party at heart, everything from licensing in different countries to how to deal with the police and the law. There was no corporate vagueness, no translucence to their answers and they even challenged more opposing questions such as ‘why are there no women on the panel’ the answer being that there are many women involved in the production of Psy parties, they just weren’t available at the moment. I never felt any sense of ego or uncomfortable wackiness like psy trance is often stereotyped as…. Also apparently Lebanon has a damn good psy scene that can throw a damn good party.
We had to abandon the Luminal Village as our afternoon siesta spot. Despite its shade it just didn’t get cool enough and any breeze that crossed through felt like dripping water on a dry tongue. During our entire time napping in the place though nobody every bothered us or paid us any mind for having a kip. Even at night when we went to watch a bizzare story telling workshop from some kooky Australian woman who punctuated her stories with weird jungles noises. We always felt welcome getting our heads down in the Luminal Village, but decided we’d siesta in the shade of the trees from now on.
The afternoons of Boom are too hot to really go mental and dance. The dancefloor warriors manage it but they are of a different bread to 2 anglo celts and an anglo-persian (To his credit Paya did do some day dancing) so our afternoons would be spent hiding in shade swigging beers and eating pizza’s in the food court or going for a dip in the beautiful lake in the centre of the festival site. For all the purveyors of the human figure out there this is where to catch the naked body in its finest form. Men and women it don’t matter what your preference is, there is something about this particular festival that attracts the most beautiful people on earth. I joked it should just be renamed ‘Hardbody fest’ but that would give it too much focus on one of the small things that make it so special. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts and conversation many time the women at Boom are absolute fucking stunning. Never have I seen so many 10 out of 10 rated birds walking around naked together in one place and what’s more its an atmosphere where admiring and respecting the human form is encouraged. There was one afternoon after a dip in the lake I was admiring (perving) on this absolutely exotic stunner that stripped down to her pubes to go for a swim, it was only when she got out and shaked the water from her dreadlocks that she caught my gaze – I mustn’t have been wearing my sun glasses, but instead of a look of disgust at my blatant prying eyes on her magnificent figure her reaction was a warm and friendly smile. And that seems to be case for the whole festival. Perverts like me are pretty harmless. The only reason I’m looking at your naked body is because its gorgeous, I try my best to not come across as a total weirdo but my gaze upon your naked body of work is the same attention I would give that of a superb work of art or a magnificent tree – a sublime consequence of nature such as your frame. And that is what the vibe is like at Boom. Beautiful folk stroll around naked and that’s just how it is. No leering perverts try to hit on said nudey birds and no man gets guffawed or laughed at for his figure. Even with my out of proportion, frail, pasty frame I felt right at home stripping down to the bollocks to go for my afternoon dip. As did my friends as well.
Each Boom comes with its own theme. This year was the year of the Shaman and with that came many workshops and guest appearances from wisdom keepers from around the globe. Everyone from Native American chiefs, west African witch doctors, Inuit elders and Aborigine tribes leaders. One night in the luminal village they all came together for a panel discussion. I really wanted to ask the Chief whether he found the use of his precious headdress as a festival fashion accessary was in anyway offensive to his sacred and ancient culture, but I didn’t have it in me to be a cunt at such an hour. The West African witch doctor lady made a fascinating translated speech about how soldiers in her country were harvesting the Iboga tree for all its worth and as a result it was killing the earth. She was adamant that the only reason that we as westerners trip balls on Iboga is because these thieving, raping soldiers are harvesting it for the black market. There was also some crazy American dude whose tribe I couldn’t quite figure out but spent his entire panel time chain-smoking cigs and went on about aliens and stuff.
Seeing as Chris had had a bit too much fun from the night before it was up to me and Paya to make the most of the evening, but not before getting the results of our pills and MDMA that we had had sampled at the drug testing facility earlier that evening. Both came back pure, with some solid advice on how to take the drugs. Although the test could gauge purity, it couldn’t test for potency so we were advised to take small amounts first before seeing how we felt and to not take any during the day as we were prone to burn out in the heat. A superb service which I cant understand aint used at more festivals. I told the friendly bird giving us our results that if she was to tell me my pills were full of shit I was going to just chuck them in the bin. If I hadn’t had this service I would have probably just taken them anyway. I cant speak for the rest of Europe and the world but I know that the only glimmer of drugs harm prevention we’ve had on our huge festival circuit was at Secret Garden Party this year. I dunno what the results of that were but surely any level minded person whether you agree with the use of drugs or its legislation cannot disagree that a harm prevention programme is at least a compromise in this monotonous time of prohibition we are currently battling our way out of.
One of the benefits of Booms lengthy 8 day stay is that it gives you the opportunity to take an early night during the week. Even the most hardest of raver cant physically with stand temperatures in the high 30’s combined with excessive drug and alcohol consumption and a shit load of dancing and socializing. It just don’t work! What is unique about this lengthy time frame and more so how Boom judge their time not by the names of the days of the week but by the sequence themselves (day 0, 1, 2, 3 etc) and how the music runs from 9pm at night till 6pm the following evening at all times – the theory being so that this can be a time where we all retreat to communal food places and the food courts so that we can all enjoy dinner together. But it’s this unnatural version of time that begins to take on a Ballardian effect on the festival crowd. As the week progresses you no longer see the end of the darkness as a time to get some rest, it becomes a time where you finally have the chance to dance to some acid techno whilst its still cool, then when the sun gets to hot retreat to the tree’s for shade and a siesta. In the course of 8 days your normal world structure of how time works is completely dismantled and before you know your behavior patterns have completely changed to the point where you are walking around naked eating vegan curries and drinking coconut water, looking forward to watching the next huge Psy act on at the terror temple. What also helped this year was the non-existence of wifi and terrible phone signal for those who even tried, making communication with the outside world almost impossible. It’s a deconstruction of modern living that can only be achieved on a weeklong scale. You’d never be able to adapt to such new ways of living at a standard Thursday-Sunday gig.
As we started to settle into our routine, communication via phone were usually obsolete. We knew where to find each other at different times of the day. One afternoon up at the sacred fire stage I was eying up the massages and thought it be a great way to get the knots out of my travelers shoulders, a price like €15 for a half hour weren’t bad either. In doing so I had to take off my necklace. A gold Christian cross that I have worn since I can remember, more then 10 years no doubt. In recent years the only reason I’d keep it on would be to piss off places of work that demanded no jewelry and I’d argue it was vital to my faith, knowing full well that it’s not a mandatory bit of kit for Catholics to wear. From the moment I handed that cross over and during my beautiful massage from a gorgeous woman I finally announced to myself that I had abandoned my faith. Now don’t get me wrong I aint turning into one of those Atheist cunts on you. I hate most of them as much as I do fundamentalists; they have a very strong belief for not believing in anything. But after my personal journey not just on this trip but over the last couple of years, I decided officially whilst lying on that hill side in that utopia in Portugal whilst receiving a full body massage that I was no longer a man of Dogma and no longer a man of labels. I’d doubted the existence of a Catholic God for sometime and this is despite the unforgiveable hypocrisy of the organisation itself. But I don’t believe in no after life, infact the concept of it terrifies me. I don’t want to carry on once all this is over I want that time to be when I finally get some proper rest after a long journey. Like all lifestyles and beliefs in this world I really have no problem with people believing what they believe in, infact I encourage it as it helps give some variety to humanity. But from that afternoon on I realized that I may as well stop labeling myself as something I’m not. I still believe there is more to this world then meets the eye, but just like the Boom community seems to revolve around the general decency of humanity, I don’t need no set of rules to run my morals by and I don’t need no all seeing entity to judge my actions whether pure or otherwise. I’ll just do what I want from now on.
So with my faith abandoned and my muscles relaxed I felt optimistic for the night ahead. We hadn’t really hung out much with Dr Phil and our German friends that much, so arranged to meet them by the lake for a swim. That night we danced away to the Sacred Fire before my dear friend Michele text me to come meet her and her boyfriend Jack at the chill out stage for a game of cards. I was anxious inviting Michelle to such a festival. A festival veteran who’s back catalogue eclipses anyone else’s I have ever met, the fact she was here on the strength of me assuring her it was one of the best made me wonder whether she’d actually enjoy it. What was also strange was attending a festival with her where she devoted most of her time with a boyfriend. I’d never seen Michelle in a relationship in the 6 or 7 years that I’d known her and although I’d met Jack on a few occasions previously, it was during our time at Boom together that I truly warmed to the geezer. Although we never truly spent a lot of festival time together I did have a nice afternoon with the two going for a swim in the lake, then Jack decided to swim the 2 miles or whatever it is to the other end and back. A feat that I thought was crazy but he achieved it no problem.
Another way of doing Boom on the cheap, a method that Jack and Michelle had opted for, was the eating of leftovers at the food court. By day you would see people walking around with signs saying ‘anything you cant finish we’ll eat’ and so on. Even when walking around I was approached a couple of times by someone who had taken on a plate of too much salad and just offered me the rest before wasting it and throwing it in the bin. This also accounted for joints as on several occasions similar scenarios played out. But again this is testament to the Boom community. The fact that people are practically begging for food is no problem. The mentality is that I’ve bought food I cant finish so you may as well have it. This acceptance of life style bleeds into other elements. I bumped into a geezer one morning because I wasn’t watching where I was going and he just laughed it off with me. One bird jumped to the front of the lengthy toilet que one morning, but we all assumed she just really needed a shit and no issue became of it. The ideal example of the mutual respect of the community came when whilst waiting in an orderly line for a water fountain one afternoon, I noticed that on top of said fountain was a pare of sunglasses and a lighter. ‘They’ve been there since last night’ Said an Israeli accent behind me. ‘People are so respectful’ he continued in regards to no one claiming these humble possessions because they didn’t belong to them. The man then sold me a joint of pure DMT, but more of that experience a little bit later.
The cleanliness of the festival is on the money, not just because people actually put all their rubbish in the correct recycling bins but because the compost toilets always seem to be completely spotless, filled with toilet paper and hand sanitizer at all times and most importantly odor free. Another aspect of the festival where I cant quite tell you exactly how they have nailed it, but they have. Whilst going for a sit down one afternoon a bit of graffiti on the back of the toilet door read ‘best place to shit in the world ever’ I was inclined to agree. The standard of Boom toilets eclipse not just those of any other festival I’ve attended, but even those of the standards of other European countries.
I mentioned in my previous Ozora post about the importance of décor at such festivals. Boom again does itself a service for the fine works of art on order. From the lighting effects that make faces appear in the trees, to the large Shaman tree structure that came to life each night with different light shows. Then of course there’s the museum of visual arts with original prints from all the worlds most famous psychedelic artists and a video instillation that I never bothered to line up to see but heard was good. There was then of course plenty of kinetic art dotted around the different gardens to keep even the most sober of minds occupied night or day.
Surely there must be some chinks in the armor of this apparently faultless festival you ask? Well yes I suppose there is. I read a review for an English festival which claimed in a very British way that a festival is only as good as it’s food service. If this statement was true then Boom would probably be the worst festival going. Ques for food are usually pretty long due to the token system most food counters enforce. Merely a tactic to keep the proprietors profits at heart seeing as most of his employees are just travelers passing through the festival using the stall as a way of making a few extra euro to get to their next destination. But with this system comes lengthy waits for even the most meager of things. I remember one evening in particular the process of having to pay for a cup of tea and slice of carrot cake and then receive said goods took the best part of half an hour. Stoned out of your head this would have almost caused for verbal out rage, but everyone else just waited patiently without comment so I just followed their lead as they all seemed happy. It’s an issue that doesn’t really seem to have any viable solution but if I can wait 2 years to spend just over a week in paradise then I’m pretty sure I can wait 20 minutes at a time to get myself a kebab without complaining.
The week of the festival always coincides with the August full moon, and I still have vivid memories to 2014’s full moon night feeling like Chinese New Year on a changa trip. It was mental, with people howling at the moon and running around naked going all out to whatever music was playing. This year however they opted to end the festival on the full moon night and too our alarm the music was billed to finish at midnight! I remember vividly the 2014 edition waking up at 6 in the morning to cheers as the thumping bass from the Terror Temple finally subsided. This finale of a night was particularly fun. We started the evening at Dr Phils pad laying in hammocks sipping wine and eating the melon I was slicing for the group. At one point Phil turned to me and asked ‘You know plenty of DJ’s and Producers in the UK? Do you think you’d be able to put on a UK takeover in Berlin for my Birthday in February next year?’ I thought this could be an achievable goal and straight away my next project for the following year had already commenced.
We danced our arses off to the incredible world music at the Sacred Fire, I stopped at one point to admire the crowd around me and realized another reason why such a festival would never work in the UK. It’s a theory that Chris called ‘The spicy latino flavour’ of the festival. Whilst we threw our usual dance floor shapes we were acting as mere backing dancers to what appeared to be an almost professional standard of a thousand street dancers around us. Some of the moves those folk make, especially the women were just out of this world. A few nights earlier at the Nataraj stage we had watched a traditional Portugese dance performance. A young woman and incredible attractive young man moved their feet at such speed and with such choreography to the sound of an older man singing operatically in Portugesse was enough to bring the captivated audience to tears of appreciation, and now here we were in amongst them all. Sexy, exotic, beautiful and in time with the music. In my short 10 years of raving I have never had the pleasure of dancing in amongst such a beautiful and diverse crowd of dancers. Just another victory for the Boom community.
As the music finished we sat round trying to recalibrate ourselves. Pilled up and pissed out of his head Dr Phil suddenly went off on one of this rants in his most eloquent and well spoken English, this time directed at his beautiful girlfriend Lisa. ‘You see I’ve never told this girl I love her to be fair! You see in English you have just one word for love, where as in German we have 8 different stages, at the moment we are at the stage of playful love, but I would like to…’ before being cut off by a blushing and desperate Lisa pleading…. ‘Please don’t say it now!’
We laughed, picked ourselves up and headed to the Terror Temple for one last dance. Then sure enough the music ended at its allotted midnight time with many ravers craving more. An announcement from the Alchemy Stage claimed that we should ‘respect the dance floor and give the earth a chance to regain it’s energy’ Quite possibly the most hippy yet effective way of telling tens of thousands of people to fuck off and go to bed.
We retired back to the food court for a few more beers. I managed to spot Jack and Michelle wondering the food court, then after a pizza and a while of chatting I noticed that the full moon was beginning to lower and had a flashback to the incredible experience I had last Boom where I broke through on Changa and experienced another dimension. I’d promised ‘Chelle and Jack that I’d give them a blast on my joint, so we made our way to the lake front far from the maddening crowd and sat in the light of the moon to blaze the purest of mother natures most powerful psychedelic. After a few heafty draws the festival around me turned into an alien metropolis, the texture of the lake was not of this world and the light around turned a warm purple. Then around the moon a golden entity appeared, arm like shapes that danced around the moon, slowly at first then eventually gained momentum, until as if some kind of proof of its power, wrapped itself around the full moon and dragged the life giving rock around the sky as some form of spectacular finale. What was even more impressive was that as I looked away to see what was going on behind me, when I turned my vision back towards the moon there was this golden god still performing it’s dance for me all to the ever fading drone of the chill out stage in the distance – the only place still playing music. ‘What an honour’ I announced. Then slowly the world started to return to as it was. It was by far the most impressive experience of psychedelic drugs I have ever experienced.
I said goodbye to Jack and Michelle. It was a shame I didn’t get to spend much time with them over the course of the week but they seemed to enjoy themselves. Jack summed the festival up perfectly as ‘It’s just like going on a summer holiday really’ All the way back at Nowhere I bumped into Michelle’s spiritual friend Reem. Who asked me within a few moments of meeting me whether that I’d consider that Michelle and me could possibly be soul mates? I think without a doubt that this could be a possibility. I love that unique specimen of a human more then anyone else in the world and am privileged to have her so close to my heart. Because of her I found my love for festivals and travel, and she was one of the inspirations and guides behind this trip. It was wonderful to see her with someone she clearly loved that week. Although it saddens me to say that Jack and hers relationship didn’t last much longer after the festival. It wasn’t on bad terms to my understanding, Jack is a good guy it’s just I think Michelle is too unique and autonomous to have someone else in her life sometimes. I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing such personal information on a public platform.
With Boom over Paya packed up his camp first as he was chasing a flight which boarding time he had forgotten. Chris and myself were in no rush as we were heading to the Boom landing event Utopia. A further 3 day chill out festival that gives Boomers an opportunity to chill out a bit before heading back to the real world. Whilst trying and failing to pack my pop up tent away, Chris managed to snap it in half in one full swoop. ‘It’s snapped like a piece of bamboo!’ I laughed first at his reaction, then at the concept of having to share a tent with the guy for the next 2 nights.
What was interesting about this particular Boom experience was how much it differed from my previous one. 2014 seemed to be a never ending party, constant socializing and making new friends at every opportunity. This time round we was all about chilling out, getting a siesta a day, smoking endless amounts of hash and sticking in a tight knit group, again a concept at a festival that’s completely foreign to me as usually I go lone wolf for atleast 60% of all festival experiences. I think that this was testament to the crowd I was rolling with. We were just happy to chill in each other’s company. Although I am happy that I now finally have a network of German friends to go with the ones from Nottingham I made last Boom. Chris always said that all 4 of his Boom’s have varied in completely different ways. But each one special in its own way.
Boom festival is a testament to the Psy-trance community. They have managed to create a festival that doesn’t revolve around its lineup or by any means it’s niche music policy (The lineup is announced the week before and there are no headline slots to speak of) this means there are no real ego’s in sight and their focus of not setting guidelines for a community but letting a community create itself. It can be seen not just by the smiling and polite faces that plaster the whole place, but in the psychedelic shanty towns that litter the camping areas, the dozens of people gathered round in the communal kitchen areas cooking each other dinner, the over flowing lost property section where all lost possesions are handed in and the liberal drug laws that are laid out for people safety and in return see no evidence of people enjoying themselves to too much excess. The Boom organisers have created that tacky yet effective cliché where Boom is not just a festival, but a transcendent experience where for just 8 days you genuinely believe that there is an alternative way we can all live together in paradise in peace. If you don’t think you could ever make Boom because of its clash with Boomtown or the fact that its billed as a psy trance event, then I don’t think the festival is particularly for you anyway, the point of it will be lost on you. From my experience it’s not just the best in Europe but the best in the world by quite a long way.
True to form the que for the Boom bus to Utopia took hours. This was expected, it just seems to be the Portuguese way to take their time with everything that they do. But I specifically remember a notice saying that the Utopia site was just an hour from the Boom location. 3 hours later we arrived in the dead of night to the site of police boarding our coach. They got an English speaker on the coach to announce that this was our chance to give up any drugs we may have on our person and that they would be sending a dog on the coach afterwards and that if anything was to be found then…. Well they didn’t quite tell us what would happen then. A few rows in front of us a hippy lad went pale, frantically going through all his pockets handing over whatever gear he had left. Weed, hash, pills. Again as they went down more and more people handed over several joints worth of weed as well as small amounts of pills and powders. The copper then stopped next to me and Chris and placed a hand on Chris’ shoulder – with the two of us carrying almost a quarter of marijuana in the form of grass, hash and space cakes, and also with a pill each between us our immediate response was ‘Oh no, nothing here!’ On leaving the bus, the terrified looking hippy then handed over his acid to one of the police. The copper looked at it, smiled and stuck it back in the fella’s bag. Then when they left the coach just moved along. There never were any dogs, it was just a blag. It was a stark reminder that although drugs in Portugal are decriminalized, they are still not legal and police have to fill their quota’s.
We set up camp on the corner of the path and exit to the back car park of the camping area. Straight away we was making friends just by sitting out on the porch of our tent. I had predicted that Utopia was going to be a small quaint, no thrills festival focused mainly on the social elements of the rave. A time to chill out and chat about our experience from the previous week. I was exactly right. The site is on a campsite in the middle of a dense and beautiful forest. Straight away the change in climate was noticeable and there were even a few showers of rain that washed over us. To the back of the festival there was a main stage playing ambient until midnight and a chill out area, then a lake area with an island where the healing area was. There was also a steam hut, which I eyed up whilst at Boom. The opportunity to trip from sweating out so much did seem appealing back at Boom, but as the week drew to a close I knew that whatever epiphany I was to be confronted with was nothing that wasn’t already playing on my mind enough.
The first bastard we noticed was that there was no cash machine or shop in sight. We were truly out in the sticks. Secondly the food prices were a whopping €10 a meal, although we did find that the clubhouse was selling ham and cheese baguettes for €3. I then noticed that people will really try and flog anything at these things, within no time little market stalls had been set up near the dance floor selling everything from stitch on psychedelic badges, cheap shitty pound shop toys and all other manner of over priced crafts and tat.
The first friend we made was a man from Manchester called Tex. Who at first began to tell us of loss of his recent 6 year relationship, which then turned into the comparison of his previous 8 year relationship, then about his job as a teacher for children with behavioral difficulties, then proceeded to tell us all the worst things he’d ever done in his life. He was funny and loony enough to warrant enough entertainment to hang around with, and it was quite nice when he thanked the 2 of us for lending him an ear. Apparently other folk had said that he shouldn’t bring such negative energy to the party. I guess he was just lucky to sit with 2 of the biggest reprobates at Boom who’d happily lend an ear to any lost sinner wanting to confess their sins.
That same morning we also met our first ketamine dealer of the week who sold us a gram for an eye watering €60. Sure enough it was clean gear close to point, but bloody hell! So with a bag of wonk and enough hash to smoke to turn each other green we felt that maybe this was the ideal time to kick back and put our feet up a bit before returning to reality. Utopia was serving its purpose.
Other kooky characters we bumped into was a young lad from Luton who had been busted for a large amount of hash on the way in and had to return to the police station to pay a fine and reclaim his passport. He had spent the last few months cycling to the festival and told us the most thrilling tale of how he’d found love along the way, showed us videos of how he nursed a little birdie back to health and how he’d battled heat stroke and sun burn twice but had now totally acclimatized. Now he was having to make his way to Spain to find a job so he’d have enough money to return to the UK by winter. He left earlier the next day when his mates started to piss him off. An inspiring fella. I really hope the rest of his journey went well.
Then there was a very charming character by the name of Baloo. A flamboyant, camp and incredibly good looking Swiss German geezer who wouldn’t have looked out of place on a cat walk. He again was filled with funny stories and charm and when I told him my name, he replied that in Swiss German it meant ‘lovely’ which was one of the most charming things anyone’s ever said to me.
Utopia passed in a haze of hash smoke and clean ketamine wonks. With the only reminder of home being the sounds of a very sick British lad – the type of gap year cliché that you bump into more often then not on your travels. He was making a right meal of how sick he was and made sure everyone in the campsite knew about it. We did laugh at the concept of their being a Kosmicare on site for Utopia. Only fitting it would take a Brit to prove its worth.
By the end of Utopia it had dawned on me that the last 20 days had been dominated by Psy-trance parties. I had completed the hippy pilgrimage of Ozora to Boom, but also noticed there was another one immediately after in Spain. It appears that if you have the money you could fill your summer with the bloody things. I did feel well and truly grounded though. By the time we got on that coach I was happy to heading back to civilization and looking forward to my next part of my adventure. My visit to Montreal.