Amy Smith (AKA DJ Jessica Fletcher) gives us the insider’s view of spinning tunes on Freightliner’s Farm for all creatures great and small.
Animal Disco took place from 4.15 - 5.00 pm on 6 June 2014
Okay, I confess. My cover is blown. While I DJ under the name Jessica Fletcher – of cult TV detective series fame – I am Holloway Life editor Amy Smith by day.
The idea of the event was to play animal-themed songs amongst all the two-legged, four-legged and eight legged creatures at Freightliners Farm and hopefully encourage others to don a mask and unleash their inner animal.
After hours of wracking my brain and getting stuck on Baha Men’s ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’, I discovered the internet is home to many forums all focused on collating lists of songs with animals in their title. Quite a few were sadly inappropriate or simply weird (see Deerhoof’s ‘Panda, Panda, Panda’) but happily there are hours of fantastic music dedicated to living beings, including Yusuf Islam’s (formally Cat Stevens) ‘I Love Dogs’, a paean to the enduring loyalty of pooches.
Survivor’s ‘The Eye of the Tiger launched the disco with mums, dads, carers, grans and tiny toddlers all jiggling and wiggling to the tunes. One of the beautiful birds directly behind the soundsystem definitely wanted to join in on some songs, particularly Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’. I choose to believe it was squawks of approval…
It was the sort of warm weather that makes a day memorable just by casting a glow on everything and everyone but it still felt like a very special event. The sight of all ages dancing amongst the lambs, ducks, sheep, goats, hens and rabbits was one to really treasure.