There was gang of four of us (John and Tony Dewhurst, Uncle George and me) who attended every one of the 14 Wickerman Festivals. The festival took place in the third weekend of July and the first one took place in 2002. The first couple of years coincided with the British Open golf tournament and that first year we stayed in a B&B in Kirkcudbright.
The site itself was situated off a very quiet country road on farmland midpoint between Kirkcudbright and Dalbeattie, located just after passing through Dundrennan.
At about 5pm on the Friday we landed at a cold and rainy site. Not unusually for us, we headed straight to the beer tent and based on the remarkably attentive reaction from all staff I still contend we were one of the first to purchase a libation in the Festival’s history, the drink obviously being a cold frothy Tennants!
There cannot have been more than 1000 people in attendance, and it did so well to survive those first couple of years as it sure it must have been operating at a loss. It was grey and windswept until the local legendary 10 strong pipe band, including Big Dougie and Wee Dougie, called the Dangleberries stepped on the main stage, the sky cleared, and the sun came out and the Wickerman festival was born. They also played a highly original bagpipe cover of ‘Paranoid’. From that day we have always said the Dangleberries saved Wickerman!
As the festival was badged in the Ska/Punk category, there was a Scooter Tent located at the top of the hill which looked like a huge Mash tent. The DJ was playing some killer tunes within. There was a suite of cover bands on stage over the weekend, namely Combat Rock (Clash), Surfin Pinheads (Ramones) and Last Year’s Men (Stiff Little Fingers), the last two named were very good fun.
The support act on the Main Stage on Friday were UK Subs with their timeless frontman Charlie Harper. To embody the DIY ethic Charlie was spotted carrying a table over to the side of the stage to set up his merchandise stand. He was later spied nursing a bowl of lentil soup in the one and only food tent on the site. The band themselves crunched out a sparky set, with ‘Warhead’ being the highlight.
I was very excited prior to the headliners SLF playing as I thought it was a such a novel location to witness them. I had only seen them once previously on the comeback tour in 1987 and they met my expectations by producing a stellar set. To add to the merriment, it was the muddiest moshpit I have encountered, to the point where you could barely raise your feet out of the treacly morass!
Other bands we observed over the weekend were Dub Skelper, Misled Youth, Naeem, Druggy and Wilderbeast. The headliners on the Saturday were Spear of Destiny who I had misjudged beforehand as being primarily in the Goth space. However, they surprised me with a stronger more metallic sound and I thoroughly enjoyed their performance.
To mirror the film theme, there was a ritual at every festival at midnight on the Saturday to burn a huge wooden Wickerman. As we were in the Sassenach minority in the audience, we were joking we might be the human sacrifices, but thankfully that didn’t come to pass. It was a suitably warm combustible end to the weekend!
The Burning of the Wickerman. Image Credit efestivals.