Now, Pablo Eskimo have been about for a good few years and we know how to party. We’ve been to some fabulous places and partied with some amazing folk. But without a doubt, the best parties are the ones where you turn up and don’t know what to expect. Like the summer solstice party for example which happened last weekend.

Now just to be clear, this was not a ‘festival’ per se, more like a big ‘party’ which was situated in a big field about 4 miles away from Moniaive in Dumfries and Galloway.

I, Pablo Alaine, had had a right rawkin night on the Friday with a few good festival friends, which ended up with me getting no sleep before heading to a birthday dinner on Saturday afternoon. Having come home from Cumbernauld after struggling to eat half a salad, and eighth of a portion of lasagne and half a cupcake while trying to look reasonably sober, we packed up the car with camping gear and set off, making our way from Glasgow to the wonderful countryside about 9:30 that night. Everyone that had made their way down before us talked about how beautiful the view was. We saw none of it as we travelled through winding twisting roads in the dark (it wasn’t completely black outside tho, this is the solstice we’re talking about here!), we were just looking forward to not driving any more...

We drove for about 2 hours and eventually got to the ‘Party’ at 11:30pm. PabloJohn and PabloBob were already down there – with PabloBob looking slightly broken from the night before (my fault, I’m such a bad influence!). The guys helped us set up camp in no time before we got the fire going and then chilled out.

Now, the good thing about being part of the small festival....ahem sorry.....party circuit for so long is the fact that you always bump in to loads of folk that you know. The inner echelons of the festie circuit are very close knit, so you never end up going to any small festivals alone. There are always folk there that you can hook up with. Such was what happened at the Solstice. After a short time we realised that we knew about quarter of the folk there! That, as well as lots of folk stopping by our wee fire meant we got to speak to almost all of the people attending this shindig over the course of the weekend.

Yet another night of no sleep ensued, with us up chatting and dancing and meeting new people. When the sun came up on the Sunday the temperature started to rise which made everyone get outside their tents and bask in the glory of a new day. Then it got too hot and people hid in the shade, or went back inside their tents. Which was silly because everyone knows it’s ALWAYS warmer in your tent than outside when the sun is shining. A few of our mates made it down on the Sunday, and we sat and chilled with them, having a laugh and sharing the experiences we’d had recently.

Finally, at 11pm it was time for Pablo to set up. This should have been a good thing, however because all that had been playing for the last day and a half was banging dance tunes we were a wee bit wary as to how folk would take us and were not sure of the reaction we would get for breaking up the dance vibe. But all our worries left when we started playing and people began jumping about, dancing and cheering. We really had such a ball and everyone enjoyed our set….so much so in fact that they didn’t want us to stop. We got good feedback and had a right laugh the next morning about it all.

It was such a fabulous experience and everyone had such a good time. Can’t wait for the next one, whenever that may be……