Block9 are the intrepid duo behind Glasto's NYC Downlow stage. *Here's* what they've got planned for this year
*I*t's 1989 in a parallel world, and spaceships have descended on New York. Manhattan is strewn with the debris of a bloody takeover, but in a corner of the city renowned for embracing outsiders, the new arrivals are fitting in rather better. Soon, the gay district is buzzing, as bug-eyed green men mingle happily with drag queens. The result is what festival visionaries Block9 are calling "Intergalactic Alien Homosexual Chaos".
Glastonbury's NYC Downlow stage is all about bringing these kind of extravagant fantasies to life. The purpose-built New York-style tenement – the brainchild of creative construction duo Stephen Gallagher and Gideon Berger, AKA Block9 – has been the festival's after-hours venue of choice since 2007. It was inspired by visits to Burning Man, with the intention of bringing some of that sense of theatre to the UK festival scene. The result is a display of hedonism-as-performance art worthy of New York's golden age. When the headliners have finished, revellers can head out towards the festival's outer limits, queue up at the "Porn Kiosk" and dance the night away in a gay Valhalla staffed by glamorous drag queens.
Each year, the Downlow has a twist: this year it's going acid house, and according to Block9's wonderfully skewed logic, that means aliens. "It felt obvious," says Stephen. "When we did 1979, there was a yellow cab crashed into the top of the Downlow – this year it's a spaceship. We had an idea a few years ago about the possibility of giving the NYC Downlow a bit of an acid housey twist, and the intergalactic alien thing just linked in with that."
Block9's Glasto operations also include the London Underground stage, a giant tower block with a tube train smashed into it that appeared at the festival for the first time in 2010. New for 2013 is Genosys, an outdoor stage which aims to take the festival back to its eco roots. With a lineup that prioritises pre-digital electronic music (including appearances by Chicago house vets Gene Hunt and Tyree Cooper), Genosys will resemble a cross between a giant oak tree and a brutalist concrete megastructure. "We're imagining a time where human beings have destroyed the planet and killed off all the plant life," says Stephen. "In a desperate attempt to clean the air, they build their own version of a tree out of concrete and glass. They go round harvesting all the plants they can find and incubate them inside the structure, to produce oxygen."
Ravers often tend to think there is a grand poetic purpose to their gurning. This time, they might just be on to something • Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
*I*t's 1989 in a parallel world, and spaceships have descended on New York. Manhattan is strewn with the debris of a bloody takeover, but in a corner of the city renowned for embracing outsiders, the new arrivals are fitting in rather better. Soon, the gay district is buzzing, as bug-eyed green men mingle happily with drag queens. The result is what festival visionaries Block9 are calling "Intergalactic Alien Homosexual Chaos".
Glastonbury's NYC Downlow stage is all about bringing these kind of extravagant fantasies to life. The purpose-built New York-style tenement – the brainchild of creative construction duo Stephen Gallagher and Gideon Berger, AKA Block9 – has been the festival's after-hours venue of choice since 2007. It was inspired by visits to Burning Man, with the intention of bringing some of that sense of theatre to the UK festival scene. The result is a display of hedonism-as-performance art worthy of New York's golden age. When the headliners have finished, revellers can head out towards the festival's outer limits, queue up at the "Porn Kiosk" and dance the night away in a gay Valhalla staffed by glamorous drag queens.
Each year, the Downlow has a twist: this year it's going acid house, and according to Block9's wonderfully skewed logic, that means aliens. "It felt obvious," says Stephen. "When we did 1979, there was a yellow cab crashed into the top of the Downlow – this year it's a spaceship. We had an idea a few years ago about the possibility of giving the NYC Downlow a bit of an acid housey twist, and the intergalactic alien thing just linked in with that."
Block9's Glasto operations also include the London Underground stage, a giant tower block with a tube train smashed into it that appeared at the festival for the first time in 2010. New for 2013 is Genosys, an outdoor stage which aims to take the festival back to its eco roots. With a lineup that prioritises pre-digital electronic music (including appearances by Chicago house vets Gene Hunt and Tyree Cooper), Genosys will resemble a cross between a giant oak tree and a brutalist concrete megastructure. "We're imagining a time where human beings have destroyed the planet and killed off all the plant life," says Stephen. "In a desperate attempt to clean the air, they build their own version of a tree out of concrete and glass. They go round harvesting all the plants they can find and incubate them inside the structure, to produce oxygen."
Ravers often tend to think there is a grand poetic purpose to their gurning. This time, they might just be on to something • Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.