Filed under: Reviews
Following days and days of rain including a 24-hour downpouring on the Wednesday, the gates opened at 10am on Thursday to a record number of early arrivals. Wearing wellies, the party started as soon as people had put their tents up, and didn’t stop until long after David Byrne exited stage right wearing his fabulous tutu on Sunday evening. By Friday, the sun was out, the ground was drying. Saturday and Sunday? Scooorchio!
Big Chill 2009 – first impressions were it had a bigger crowd, lots more youth, more kids, and more proper grown ups. But best of all, the beautiful people were back. The Big Chill is over a decade old now and although the British summer is crowded with boutique festivals, this one seems to have kept in step. It’s about time it outgrew its exclusivity and got a bit more kickingly mental as the big scale established event it now is. A bullish programme of big established headliners Basement Jaxx, Orbital and David Byrne were just the ticket.
Friday warmed up with a Chris Cunningham audio visual show that was as dark as it was ethereal. Mixed feelings about this, on the one hand the indulgence was engaging, on the other its dark images were disturbing.
Headliners Basement Jaxx drew a massive, expectant audience, before launching into the thundering opener ‘Good Luck’. The crowd partied hard to hits ‘Jump ‘n’ Shout’, ‘Oh My Gosh’, recent release ‘Raindrops’ and the encore, ‘Bingo Bango’. There were a few unexpected moments too such as a breakdown version of Kings of Leon’s hit ‘Sex on Fire’ and a few bars of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ before crashing into ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ They also previewed their new single ‘Feeling’s Gone’, which had tones of Stock, Aitken & Waterman. But it was a good moment – for half the audience at least. As always the band’s stunning vocalists and dancers added drama and theatrics – someone called it histrionics – but a big crowd pleasing dance act with a huge light show had been missing from Big Chill Friday night line-up for a long time, and it felt good to party.
Beautiful sunshine bathed Eastnor on Saturday and while listening to Helios’s ambient swooshiness everyone around us started slapping on the sun-block. Jazz legend Pharoah Sanders was amazing. At first he seemed a little intricate and demanding, but the fluency and prowess of his band had a mostly sedentary Big Chill on its feet cheering by the end.
Saturday night began with a reunited Lamb who had played at The Big Chill at the Larmer Tree Gardens a decade ago. The bass laden sound mix became a bit oppressive (unlike Emiliana Torrini‘s pained, exquisite tenderness on the next door Castle Stage, which seemed a bit more cheery). That said fans of the trip hop beats were bouncing like baby lambs, even if Lou Rhodes’s vocals were hard to distinguish at times.
Orbital was the anticipated reunion gig of the festival. Many festival goers had bought tickets just to see them. It was absolutely ram-packed in front of the main stage and anyone seeking an old school rave up courtesy of the Hartnol brothers wasn’t disappointed. People with arms outstretched were doing that monkey climbing a drainpipe/reach for the lasers dance not seen since ‘89. It was good to see these guys again and hear the anthems ‘Chime’, ‘Lush’, ‘Halcyon’, ‘Satan’ and many more, including a favourite of the night, ‘The Box’. Afterwards it was a short stagger to the Coop tent to hear Horse Meat Disco play out their disco marathon with Teddy Prendergrass’s ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ and Toto’s ‘Africa’.
On Sunday, we were gutted to miss David Byrne (apparently the highlight of the weekend) but still, we had time for Norman Jay before we had to go. His Sunday afternoon session is a stalwart tradition of the Big Chill and whole festival turned up to have a blast in the baking sunshine. In years passed Norman played us samples of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 ‘I Have A Dream’ speech. Poignantly, this year we were treated to President Barack Obama telling us ‘Yes We Can’.
DJs all over the site sounded better than ever this year. Highlights included Justin Robertson’s phenomenal main stage electro mash up, Todd Terje, DJ Format and Slam in the Coop club tent.
As the Guardian wrote in their review, The Big Chill has often been dismissed for being a buggy-wielding kids fest, when it’s more than that (actually, it was the Guardian who used to bang on about that, but never mind). Maybe they noticed a change because the kids’ entertainments had been moved out of the Castle Stage field. Hopefully this will revert to norm next year, the parents missed being on the fringes of live music, as much as the Castle Stage, quiet at times, missed their support.
In essence, The Big Chill is a big social, with lovely live background music, a few pocket raves going off and plenty of pretty spaces to flop down at to properly chill (doing whatever, with whoever, you fancy).
(Conor and Sam)
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