For anyone feeling the absence of Glastonbury this summer, We Out Here was the perfect substitute. The festival took place this weekend in the grounds of St Giles House, the Earl of Shaftesbury’s estate in Wimborne St Giles, Dorset. Like Glastonbury, WOH invests in the non-party side of things - sauna, lake, wellness, art and talks - as much as in the superbly curated music stages, which have Gilles Peterson written all over it.
In its seventh year, it’s the perfect size with 25,000 milling around between the 400 live acts and DJs across 15 stages - large tents, hay-bale surrounded 'Rhythm corner', the bowl’ stage, open-air forest dance floors… And it’s extremely good with kids, without being a kids festival. The crowd had an open and relaxed vibe, and the programming, which spans soul, afro, hip-hop, house and related genres, draws a bigger mix of races than I’ve seen at a non-specialist festival. The more people that I spoke to, the more it felt like much of Peckham’s sub-culture and inhabitants had headed there.
