The Thames Festival and a beach rave up

Yesterday I spent some good times along the river on Southbank at the Thames Festival. This was a free cultural event with live music and other artsy bits and pieces.

For me, the highlight of this festival was undoubtedly The Dukesbox and the beach party. The Dukesbox is a novel little band of travelling musicians who sit in a caravan styled like a juke box and play any tune you ask of them simply by putting your money in the slot. It's a fantastic idea and the band drew a big crowd. They are a talented bunch of lads; capable of remembering thousands of tracks. We had a great time bopping around to them.

The night ended with a mad rave up on beach at about midnight. Now beach rave ups aren't common in London. Firstly where the hell is the beach??? In actual fact at low tide there is a wide beach below the walls near to the London eye. Here some enterprizing types had set up their decks and a wicked sound system. A diverse crowd were grinding closely whilste trying not to stumble over in the sand.

There was a euphoric buzz among the crowd. A lot of drugs were being got through and satellite groups of dodgy looking characters were hanging around with fierce looking dogs on the end of leads. Generally there was a feeling of goodwill amongst the dancers although laced through the energy of the party was a heady concoction of latent sexual tension and violence. We were dancing like there would be no end; it was one of the last warm evenings of the dying summer and we were damn well going to get the best out of it...until the police came to break us all up at around 5am.