Guy Incognito » The Big Chill 2007

The Big Chill 2007

I will be first to admit that my only comparison on how good a festival The Big Chill is to compare it to Ned’s In The Park (T In The Park to those of you not from Scotland) but the difference in terms of setting, campsites, accessibility, music, people, facilities is unbelievable. To me T in The Park has become an excuse for people to get pissed in a field where as the Big Chill is a festival for people that are fans of music that doesn’t really appear in the charts.

I had an outstanding weekend made up of good people, fantastic weather and amazing music. Now as there is quite a lot to get through I am just going to give breif overviews of the bands that I saw.

Friday

Akasha

They opened the festive on the open air stage, Akasha having been around for a while now starting out on the Wall Of Sound label (made famous by the Propellerheads and Wiseguys) The gave us a funky start to the festival in bright shiny weather.

Kate Rodgers

Ahh the lovely Kate Rodgers. Kate started off signing on various artists from the now defunct Grand Central records. Her own stuff is far removed from the beats and funk of those artists and more embraces a folkish and country field. Not my mates cup of tea but I really enjoyed it.

Ritchie Havens

We were devestated to find out the Mika had cancelled due to some illness (yeah right, I have never heard such a loud cheer as I did when this was announced, what made it even funnier was that all the noticed boards that had “Unfortunately Mika had Cancelled” had the “un” part scored out ) so that meant the Mr Havens was moved to his spot. And by jings did he deserve it, covers by the Beattles and The Who sounded even better when sung by Ritchie, his banter was not bad either and he even managed to finish his set with a scissor kick…. outstanding!!!
The Cinematic Orchestra

This was one of my reasons to go to this festival to see the Cinematic Orchestra. I saw them on their “Man With A Movie Camera” tour and was amazed at the big sound with tight talented musicians playing beautiful tunes. Their Big Chill performance was no different, to hell with your Dave Grohls, you wanna see an amazing drummer, check out the boy from this lot!!

Kruder & Dorfmeister

Anyone familuar with the original laid back styles and sounds of K & D were surprised with their 4 hour DJ set joind by various MC’s during the night. Very heavy, housy and in your face with tracks like “Window Licker” by Aphex Twin being thrown in to the set at the crowds delight. I only stuck around for half the set coz I wanted to see the next lot…..

Red Snapper

After a 5-year break the Snapper boys are back and what a return to form as frontman/bass weilder Ali Freid destroyed his double bass while belting out the thunderous rythmic tones from Red SNappers back cat. No vocalist on board but still a great show. I am looking forward to their next album.

That finishes Friday, I hit my kip at the back of 1 to be all fresh and ready for the next day.

Saturday

Blue States

Andy Dragazis’ extremely chilled mob are probebly best known for their track “Season Song” which was featured in the movie 28 Days Later. I have been a fan since there debut album “Everything Changes Under The Sun”, they are currently working on album number 4 and I for one can’t wait to hear it and it was pretty special to see them live for my first time!!

Mari Boine

This was my surprise find of the festival. Mari is Norwegian and sings in her native language so kind of makes it difficult for yours truely to sing along to!! But that doesn’t matter as her Celtic and Native American influenced melodies transcending any language barriers and she truely was a pleasure to watch on the sunny Saturday lunchtime

The Go! Team

“I know this is the Big Chill…. but we don’t really do chill” announced The Go! Team before giving us an hour of energetic music that must have had the whole crowd jumping. I first heard this lot when I bought a record label sampler for the same label that Blue States were on, and as soon as I heard “Junior Kickstart” by The Go! Team, I liked them ever since. They developed from a sampler/sequencer outfit to hard rawkin’ band they are today…. WELL WORTH SEEING LIVE!!

Bonobo

Another festival highlight, Bonobo is another of those acts that made the transition from a sample/sequencer to recruiting a live band for the stage performances that give an outstanding performance. Great to see live and hear on CD.. check em’ out.

Mr Scruff

As I was more into seeing Bonobo, I only caught the end of Mr Scruff’s set (in fact just as he was playing my favorite “Keep Moving” but I have seen him DJ before and knew what to expected, I am sure that those that were there for the whole set would have been satisfied!

Hexstatic

Coldcut may have comeup with the idea of syncing music and visuals, but Hexstatic are the ones who ran with it. From the opening of their set with “Red Laser Beams” the large monitors behind them were filled with images from the new Transformers movie. But please do not think that the music is overlooked in favour of visuals, Hexstatics set was blinding, we were treated to a full spectrum of tunes including House of Pain mixed with Kriss Kross and Led Zepplin mixed with Queen, throw in some Drum N’ Bass for good measure and finish up with the Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch UP”. Their set had me and the crew dancing from start to finish!

Crazy P(enis)

I remember saying to my mate Rob (in a somewhat drunken voice) “We may as well go home Rob, the festival can’t get any better than that!” after Crazy P finished playing their almost 2 hour set with a cover of “You Got The Love”. Despite everyone at our camp’s different music tastes, we were all their for Crazy P. This was without a doubt the performance of the festival as the gang had us all dancing to tracks like “Sun-Science” and the anthem “You Started Something”. This would actually be the last band I saw at the Chill, but I can’t think of anyone better to finish off my weekend with.

Sunday

By Sunday I was knackered and their wasn’t much I wanted to see, so being the sell out beeach i am, I cheated the whole camping experience by going to visit my cousin who stays in Malvern so that I could get a good shower and use a non-chemical toilet. I got back in time to see the Joe Strummer documentry “The Future is Unwritten”. It was excellent and there was a round of applause and shouts of “we miss you Joe” and “We love you” as the credits rolled. It was quite an emotional moment.

All in all, the festival was immense and I hope to go back next year, you should all do the same .