We are !wichtig!

This weekend was Glastonbury festival. I didn't go. For the first time in years, I did not lug instruments around and across that sprawling mud. Nope. This year, instead, I went continental, I went to play Berlin’s sun-and-fun-filled

Fusion Festival.

Fusion is held on what was once a soviet air training base, in the former DDR (Soviet bit of Germany. The Eastern bit). The stages were old aircraft hangars and we were issued foot and drink stamps. (A lot of them. Maybe, even, too many. On our last morning, I had to have a fajita and a banana smoothie and a fresh-squeezed orange juice and a waffle and a chai latte for breakfast to try to use them up. I still didn’t. I feel this is, perhaps, not an exact parallel to the situation in the actual Soviet state.)


Our accomodation was one giant tent with ten canvas stretchers all in a row. Very much like a world-war-one hospital tent. Quite possibly an actual was a world-war-one hospital tent.

Along with the loads of food and kitsch/nostalgia hospitality, highlights of Fusion include:

-The fact that the festival was totally sold out (55,000 tickets, I think), despite the fact that none of the acts are announced until after all tickets are sold. Meaning these audiences aren't out to just-see-the-big-names, they come, and cheer and dance and make you feel really great, and see everything. A music festival, not a celebrity-spotting-event.

-There's a free bus that leaves every 30 minutes to take you to a lake for swimming.

And, finally:

-Getting a big sticker that says "!WICHTIG!" to put on our van. We're keeping that.