An audience member is dragged on stage in front of a couple of thousand fancy-dressed ravers and put into a homemade time machine. On the giant screen behind them, a timer counts up to 808, a reference to the classic drum machine behind much of rave music and also to the film Back to the Future – the theme for this year’s Bang Face Weekender.
This is all part of the annual opening ceremony. “We went through a stage of getting celebrities in, like Dave Benson-Phillips, Bez and Normksi, and eventually I just thought, you should be doing it yourself,” the festival’s founder James St Acid tells me. “Because the celebrities would come and be like, ‘OK I’ll do it’, and then they’d get all the lines wrong.”
The party, held last weekend and featuring 5,000 people in a Pontins camp in Southport, Merseyside, has grown to become one the most vibrant and passionate subcultural events in the UK since its inception in 2003. You won’t get away with wearing a drab black techno wardrobe: punters, who are known as Hard Crew, dress as elaborate robots, or the splitting head disguise from Total Recall, or even as the Pontins itself. About 75% of them return year on year, with 45% flying in from abroad, drawn not just to its joyously unfashionable embrace of breakcore, gabber, acid house but also its very specific personality and sense of humour.
The latter is most obviously transmitted via the festival’s Impact-font banners, where attendees hold up rave-related jokes printed on white backgrounds – the likes of Rave New World, I Sold a Kidney to Be Here, and Tonight Matthew I’m Going to Be a Fucking Twat. “You walk down the road and you see some kind of horrible tabloid headline outside the newsagents – it came from that idea,” James says. “You can’t really communicate in a rave, it’s so loud, so you find a banner that represents your mood. That became more and more abstract, and sillier, so now people are just holding up total nonsense. But it means everything to them. People submit them and I have to type each one out. It takes weeks.”
It’s all consciously angled for you to have an amazing time and stop taking yourself seriously. But that doesn’t mean Bang Face, with its incredibly powerful soundsystems, is half-arsed. “It’s a DIY ethic, professionally delivered,” James says. “In the early days I wanted to keep it as DIY as possible, setting the decks up on the dancefloor and sticking bits of paper on the walls. Over time, I realised you can deliver something way more powerful with state-of-the-art LED screens and lighting systems and lasers. It’s grown and the event has grown with it.”
As you might expect, this attitude spills out into their bookings. It’s all party music first and foremost. “There are serious bookings here,” James says. “We put on the first Model 500 show in the UK, and Dopplereffekt: proper highly considered electronic music. There’s a respect for history: the origins of rave and our understanding of its evolution.” Other artists are less “proper highly considered electronic music” – this year’s lineup features novelty 90s dance duo Outhere Brothers, plus there’s Shitney Beers, DJ Lara Croft’s Dentist, Cervical Snare and Spongebob Squarewave.
Early on Friday morning, a few dozen ravers lie on the floor of a Pontins pub, in a pile of pillows and blankets, engaging in a guided meditation to the sound of crisps being eaten, toilets flushing and the discordant strings of what could well be a horror-movie soundtrack. Eventually the sound of a piano banging a single chord repeatedly, getting faster until it stretches into a wall of abstract digital noise. After a while, it breaks into a piano rendition of Liquid’s hardcore classic Sweet Harmony. This is part of the takeover by Chinstroke Records, who have previously curated the on-site TV channel and this year have graduated onto a real stage. They have been part of the festival for years by embracing the Bang Face ethos and putting their own twist on it, as have bassline and rave outfit Off Me Nut Records, who have gone from hosting the pool party to the second stage.
The holiday camp setting, meanwhile, “separates it from a festival and allows people to put more effort in,” James says. “You’ve got a base where you can keep costumes; it’s a sanctuary that you can go to. And everyone’s having a little house party.” Even with a chalet, Southport in March offers almost constant rain and occasional hailstorms, and a lake forms on one of the lawns. But this is all part of what James refers to as the “ordeal of Bang Face”. From the outside, it can all look quite scary, but once you surrender yourself, it is incredible. As one banner held aloft reads: I Love All Hard Crew, Even the Cunts.
Five key Bang Face tracks, by resident DJ Demon Cabbage
DJ Scotch Egg – Scotch Chicken
DJ Scotch Egg pulled a big crowd at this year’s weekender and has always been a favourite of Hard Crew, known for performing with his Game Boys. At one point Otto Von Schirach joined him on stage – it was carnage.
Remarc – RIP
Jungle legend Remarc plays Bang Face regularly and the Hard Crew are big fans of his choppy Amen-break music. He played after me and Dave Skywalker at this year’s opening ceremony and he smashed it. I felt really on the spot to mix well when he was waiting to come on stage – luckily I never trainwrecked the final mixes before he took over.
The DJ Producer – True Creators
Another legend and favourite of the Hard Crew, who loves playing Bang Face – he has so much passion when he plays.
Altern-8 – Active-8
James booked Altern-8’s Mark Archer when Bang Face was still in its early days. Mark loves Bang Face to the extent that he actually got married onstage as part of the opening ceremony, which was mad as you would expect. This year he played a tribute set to Keith Flint, which was amazing and emotional at the same time.
South Yorkshire Mick Hucknall – Live from Japan
There’s always your fair share of interesting smaller acts at the weekender, and Big Al from the Off Me Nut label never disappoints. The label is mainly known for its wonky bassline house, and fun parties, but there is more to them than that. I love watching the crowds reaction when South Yorkshire Mick Hucknall plays – this year he opened his set by saying he had lost his memory stick then dropped a tune about everyone loving Spider-Man. This went on for about 15 minutes.
