Zoo Fiddler

Continuing on the Zoo theme, I have just discovered that our old mate Ali the giant Perc is lucky enough to have bagged himself a set at a brand new festival-in-a-zoo taking place this summer in Kent, England.

The Zoo Thousand festival takes place on the weekend of 4th – 6th July at the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park near Ashford in Kent: a proper festival with camping and everything which offers an eclectic musical selection of indie, dance, UK hip-hop, breaks and drum and bass alongside the opportunity to visit the animal park itself, including their Palace of the Apes exhibit (which claims to be the biggest gorillarium in the world).

The line-up itself (the mighty Perc excluded of course!) looks a little five years ago to me – particularly the dance stages – but acts that might interest some of you include: Dizzee Rascal, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Frank Turner, The Hives, Ida Maria, The Young Knives, Late of the Pier, Pendulum, Stanton Warriors, Evil Nine, Hannah Holland, Beans on Toast and the not-quite-the-same-as-the-real-thing offer of DJ sets from the Mystery Jets and Bloc Party. But as the Perc-man says, “It is worth doing just in case their logo proves prophetic and a 100ft chimp wearing headphones destroys the main stage, hopefully when Ronson is pedalling his diet-soul nonsense.” Quite:

And if you were at all worried about the welfare of the animals who live at the park the rest of the year round (we were!), the festival website states that “the animals will be kept at a safe distance from the crowds and artists in the 600-acre site”, with the following pledge:

“Don’t worry NO animals will be caused any distress whilst staging Zoo8. The festival will be taking place on the grasslands arena which is separate to the wildlife park and well away from the animals. We take animal welfare very seriously which is why this event is in partnership with the Aspinal foundation to help raise funds to help endangered species…. It also enables festival goers to visit the park and see the animals and the great work that is done at Port Lympne.”

In other animal-related news today: ‘Sex pest’ seal attacks penguin.