I travel the length and breadth of the country for various festivals so it makes a pleasant change when a nice little event like Eastern Haze pops up in my home county of Suffolk. This is the second year that the event has been held in the grounds of Somerleyton Hall near Lowestoft and a very pleasant few days it was too.

The “Main” Stage uses the excellent Wango’s travelling stage which I’ve seen at several other events in the past. Headliners were The Blockheads on their 30th anniversary tour, Ozric Tentacles and The Bootleg Beatles with a supporting bill which perhaps leaned a little too heavily on the space rock/psychedelic genre. The “Next” Stage with its large inflatable hands was home to a succession of local bands, most of whom were very metal and crowds at this stage were somewhat sparse to say the least. The Acoustic Tent was better attended and benefited from a headline slot from The Levellers on the Saturday night.

There was plenty to keep the dancers happy with separate tents catering for Psy-Trance, Club, Reggae, Hip-Hop and Drum’n’Bass and these tents were largely rammed until 2am on the Friday and Saturday evenings, although there was an 11pm curfew on Sunday. The Freedome tent encouraged punters to join the jamming sessions and there was also a Circus and several other small stages and stalls providing entertainment.

Several familiar food, music and clothing stalls were present and a good sized green area included crafts, massages, saunas and environmental campaigns. The kids also had circus skills workshops and storytelling sessions to keep them entertained and there were a small number of walkabout performers. The 2 main beer tents served a very decent & reasonably priced festival ale. However the Brothers Pear Cider ran out on Friday and other ciders on the Saturday so the choice was limited for non-lager drinkers, especially as you weren't allowed to take your own booze into the arena.

Camping was in a flat, uncrowded field right next to the arena. Early arrivals had a long walk from the car park but people arriving on Friday evening were able to park much closer & a number of cars actually ended up in the campsite without any complaints from security. Toilets in the arena were plentiful and generally very well maintained although there were too few in the campsite and they seemed to stop being cleaned on Saturday with very unpleasant results by Monday morning.

The weather could have been better and we had a prolonged period of rain which pretty much washed out Friday afternoon. But we certainly faired better than other parts of the country over the weekend and it otherwise remained predominantly dry with a majority of the site holding up very well underfoot.

All in all a lot of fun was had with many friends old & new from assorted message boards who all camped together. Eastern Haze will certainly be on my shortlist again next year.