Covenanza 2022

 

I’d never been to Covenanza before last month, let alone A Love From Out Of Space. However, having heard about it and feeling that it was something I should be a part of, I felt that I should be. So, back in a time when the world felt like a different place, December 2019, I bought tickets for myself and my other half. I remember the day well. For whatever reason I was taking the bus into work that day and on my way home, I came across the news that tickets were on sale, I bought them at the bus stop in front of Parker’s Piece, Cambridge on a shitty, grey, pre-Christmas day. COVID was a burgeoning news story, but still felt very far away. Anyway, I had the tickets, and something to look forward to on the wrong side of summer.

Chug forward a couple of months and everything started going pear-shaped. Andy Weatherall’s sad passing in February a portent of what was to come. Again, I remember everything with great clarity. Scrolling down my Twitter feed at work I saw the news but couldn’t quite believe it. A subsequent pile on confirmed it though and more so than the death of anyone else who I had had the pleasure to have beckoned into my life, this one resonated a lot more. A month later lockdown hit. Of course one is always slightly self-centred at times like these, wondering and hoping if the event will still go ahead. I thiought that we’d still get to Naples for Easter, but as that came and went it became increasingly obvious that Covenanza wouldn’t happen in 2020. The EBS lifeline thrown out by Sean Johnston over the coming months did offer realistic hope of it emerging from the chaos when the time would be right, as well as a critical lifeline to the isolated faithful.

The following year came and went with normality still a tantilising glimmer on the horizon. The French government was still making life difficult for overseas tourists to visit, and a sense of inevitability had set in long before. Towards the end of the summer, beginning of autumn, a sense of normality had begun to resurface and what had felt unthinkable mere months before began to assume solidity. We’d all been penned up for too long and needed some release. And, although clubbing and going out in general had been on its arse mere months before, there was a general feeling of revitalisation in the air. Not only that, lost time was there to be made up.

Fast forward to this year, which has passed in a bit of a blur. I can’t remember exactly when we could download our tickets, patience had never felt better rewarded. I had already cancelled rand been refunded flight tickets once, but got on the case again in late spring. Initially I had bought return tickets from Stansted to Beziers. This was because the flights to Carcassone had either sold out, or where much more expensive, I can’t remember which. Anyway, we went the Beziers route again. We have relatives who live there, so could kill two birds. Maybe Carcassone was available, but I didn’t stop to look. 

Tickets were booked. Flying out on Friday the 23^rd and coming back on Sunday the 25^th. Next time we’ll stay longer to take in the peripheral events on the Thursday and Sunday, but this time it was to be a quick raid on the citadel. Our flight contained a healthy percentage of like-minded punters, something we realised when we saw some of them a few hours later within the chateau walls. After a delay of around 40 minutes on the runway we got in the air, landed without a hitch, took the bus into Beziers and then got on the train to Carcassone. As we sped through the countrysidethe sky got more and more ominous until the heavens let loose and it started to rain. It had stopped by the time we arrived, but only temporarily. 

We checked into our hotel, a very nice room in what is really a hostel, and then started roaming. Food was necessary so after having walked for around ten minutes we came to Brasserie des Platanes. This is just the type of place I love to eat in: unpretentious, friendly and huge amounts on the plate. I had magret frites while Emmanuelle had salade de chèvre chaud. Really good and preposterously cheap. This was washed down with an espresso, which should have been a noisette, but the milk was just a reduced froth. I’m looking forward to next year just as much to visit this place again as I am to the party. Carcassone is a simple place to navigate, so once we left we easily found our way to the citadel. The music was audible from across the bridge, and every person we passed on our way was Irish. 

We arrived and Utopia Strong were probably around halfway through their set, which was a strangely coherent shamanic drone coalescence. The rain had started before they had finished though, and then started lashing down. Having survived countless storms in that part of the world I was optimistic that it wouldn’t go on for too long, but it would make its presence felt. The resourcefulness of the crown took on a new dimension, with dancers sheltering in what looked like the outlines of vast window frames or, like us, in a doorless room, which soon got packed and had the helpless French security trying to chuck us out, which was ridiculous and uncalled for. It did foster a new sense of togetherness though, which remained the case for around forty minutes. During this time some sort of gazebo was being erected for Sean Johnston to play. When he cane on the rain hadn’t completely stopped, but was at a manageable level. He had to contend with some sound issues initially, but these were quickly overcome. I suppose it’s at this point that I start listing random tunes he played. However, even though I recognised plenty, all as a result of his many EBS ALFOS sessions, (never having been to a UK ALFOS yet), the last thing I’m going to do is start listing them. Where would it end? I post all of the sets in question on this blog, from original uploads from the redoubtable Del Scott, and it’s probably fair to say that the set we listened to contained quite a few tunes from this sonic smorgasbord, as well as some, as of then unheard gems. In any case, Sean’s set was superb and the ideal antidote to the conditions. More than that though, it had been three years in the making and embodied the feelings and emotions of those present, as well as cathartic culmination of events that had occurred since the previous shindig. (Something that did feel prescient for me, at least. We arrived just in time for me to buy the last ‘Music’s Not For Everyone End Times Sound’ tee shirt. Three remained, one in large.)

So the first night passed, and there was much rejoicing. It had been a long time since we had been out dancing and, for me at least, the first time sober since God knows when. I was obviously surrounded by a variety of intoxicants and inebriates, which all contributed to the wonderful ambience and was, for many of those around me, something that was going to permeate their every waking hour. The next day we went for a cafe in the main square and it felt like most of the terraces had been taken over by ravers who, eschewing sleep, were pie-eyed and on the piss. It seemed that it was liquid lunches all round, only to be partaken of if the circulatory system is chemically enhanced. It’s all good though. We went off for a kebab, and then back to crash for a few hours, but not before we had reserved a table at Aux Delices de Tetuan, a small couscous restaurant in the street behind were we were staying. Now I’m quite proud of my home made couscous. However, what we had at this unassuming little place was superb. We each had couscous berbere, which is assorted veg on a bed of couscous with lamb brochettes and merguez. There was a subtle spicing at work which was detectable by a sixth sense of seasoning. It was brique to start, mine with chicken, Emmanuelle had tuna. Again, ridiculously cheap and excellent; like the night before.

Then it was full speed ahead to the chateau. The rain was a memory, but a fresh one, and we arrived just as Glok (Andy Bell) was starting his set. This was nice lead in and the calm before the storm. David Holmes then came on and played a short, but very enjoyable set before being followed by Decius; “when members of Trashmouth Records, Fat White Family & Paranoid London find themselves climbing out of a hole together at a disco after hours”, who were a revelation. A linear, tracky glitch in time egged on by vocals that were on the one hand a caterwaul, on the other a self-perpetuating instrument of their own ruthlessness, they came on like a technoid Kraftwerk conceived in mid nineties Chicago with lashings of gothic undertones. They had the crowd eating out of their hands by the time they handed over to Manfredas, who continued in the same vein. He played hard, tracky and synthetic: techno to the untrained ear, but much more was going on in between the lines. Coming on like some sort of human hurricane, the Lithuanian whirling dervish bent the music to his will, and was a very different, but no less satisfying, spectacle than Sean Johnston the previous evening. Both sets were eclectic, but were Sean’s was easier to sonically discern, that of Manfredas was flattened out into a dense throb of linear assumption. The funk was stretched wafer-thin until it was at breaking point. It was a more fluid set than Sean’s but only in timbre. The previous evening had been all about coming together and sharing some much-delayed gratification. Twenty four hours later this had metamorphosised into a sort of dark disco version of “you live by the sword, you die by the sword”. Both sets were excellent and took the party to the next level, and I’m trying to compare them, without comparing them, so I won’t. Just comments and observations which, because of the inevitability of the situations, sound like comparisons. In any case, all those complaining recently on social media about DJs dancing better hadn’t come and see Manfredas, if dancing is what it is. The sets themselves, composed as they were of a healthy proportion of impossible to id obscurities, each complemented each other and encompassed a cross-section of electronic dance music; traversing the annals of rave and disco in an effortless blend which rendered them homogenous, but also allowed breathing space and the chance to shine. As already intimated, were Sean’s set allowed for more twists and turns, Manfredas’ was a tracky wormhole of occasional dark despair. The two sets for me at least, embodied the rave aesthetic and wre flexible and malleable enough to contain the occasional interloper. And this is where the subtleties are largely lost on the vast majority who attend such functions. Not that the evening’s prime objective should be to study the DJs every move, track and flourish, but it’s unavoidable when they are placed centre stage. I’m a big fan of inconspicuousness in these situations, but it didn’t seem to register with the crowd who were wrapped up in their raving. Whether that person playing the music chooses to dance or not is surely immaterial. And, it’s fatuous to suggest otherwise. It’s generally the case however, that someone who does looks relaxed and that they’re enjoying themselves, while someone who doesn’t could be uptight and shitting bricks.

And so to Sunday. A cafe in the main square before getting on the train to Beziers and a lovely lunch with the in-laws on a sunny terrace, which feels a world away right now. We flew back to Stansted that evening while the festival was being wrapped up in the Bar de Vins, expecting to see some like-minded refugees on the flight. Just us though. Thankfully we were on time, getting back at around 9pm, only to find that we had no water due to a repair at a neighbours having gone wrong. We went to bed smelly, unshowered, and with teeth cleaned using Badoit. Getting up on Monday was agonising.