The Big Chill

Eastnor Castle.

It’s been a while since I’ve slummed it with the festival goers in this country. Over the last few years I’ve been enjoying the luxury of hot festivals in Europe. It only seemed appropriate to bring myself back to earth gently on the grounds of the 19^th Century Eastnor Castle for the Big Chill Festival where camping is pleasant and rubbish is recycled.

Having managed to miss some of the must-see bands on my list (Angus and Julia Stone and Johnny Flynn) due to the wind blowing away our tent and the gazebo missing a leg we made the short journey to the rather picturesque deer park where the other 29,000 revellers were already bumbling along in the blowy on-off English sunshine.

The gates didn’t have a whiff of the over bearing scumbag security that some of the other festivals have, it was pretty chilled, you could come and go as you please although the occasional bag was checked for booze. Unfortunately just when you think everything is ok you are reprimanded for taking plastic bottles in. The claim of it’s ginger ale was refused and with a swift opening of the bottle the delightful scent of Southern Comfort appeared in the air. Sorry you can’t take that in. Doesn’t this fuel binge drinking and people standing at the gates getting smashed because they drink their days worth of booze in five minutes? The problem is that once you’re in on top of the £129 ticket price it’s four quid for a tequila.

Nevertheless, we were in and we had backup supplies and were drawn into the Rizla arena. Perhaps something that should be on every street corner. An Ibiza style area with palm trees and a stage with perfect dancing music coming out of the bouncing speakers, constantly. We went back every day and spent at least an hour in there each time.

There’s plenty to do at the festival for all ages, however someone needs to keep an eye on the youngsters as two 15 year olds approached us requesting ‘mushrooms.’ They could have spent their time in the rather delightful Enchanted Garden where there was a Cider Bus serving up a rather fine Minty Cider cocktail, not to mention the dip stand making tasty fresh dips, we especially enjoyed the plentiful salads served up at the quinoa salad stand. Venture deeper into the garden and you would find a Japanese restaurant, massages aplenty, a naked sauna and even a chocolate lounge where you could get a rum, hot chocolate and espresso drink. Lovely stuff. However, best of all in the garden was the PianoX, a deformed piano on which you could hit the strings to make all kinds of wonderful noises.

Back in the main festival and we found ourselves tapping along nicely to Fujiya Miyagi and their electro rock, it had an element of chanting to it and was lyrically repetitive but this was upstaged by the seriously danceable music. Following them we found ourselves perfectly positioned for the Mighty Boosh, an old favourite that had fallen out of favour following the not as good as the other two third series. However I was pleasantly delighted to see they had regained some of the old charm of the shows and taken it to a new level in their full band show. Highlights included ‘The Moon’s’ version of 99 Problems (four of them being his catering) and Julian Barratt getting out his Keytar.

There are certain things that you can only stumble across by walking around festivals and when we stumbled across Lykee Li were especially impressed. The Scandinavian darling had us dancing around with our ciders all the way back to the Rizla Arena (again). Other bands of note included Orchestra Baobab, Trentemøller and the ever impressive Cornelius who match every beat to stunning visuals.

It was the first time I had been to a festival not because of the music and it’s a highly enjoyable way to do it. There’s never any stress or mad rush to get from stage A to Stage B and with everything in such close proximity there is never a care to be had. The Big Chill Festival 2008 was a top notch festival and it seems a place that people go back to again and again and again.

Something we missed? Tell us about it!