The back end of my holiday was spent at the Big Chill at Eastnor.
I always have mixed feelings about festivals, really. I think maybe it’s because they are supposed to be relaxing in some way (getting away from yer cities and work) but they actually provide such a bewildering amount of stuff to do that it all rapidly becomes quite knackering.
Takings kids along seems to circumvent a lot of this because you can’t actually just go and watch things, you are forced to wander about and not move at your own pace. After the initial shock of not being able to tick things off my all-encompassing “to see” list, I actually prefer this way of doing things – drifting about, seeing what’s what, sitting down and listening to some music while the daughter and her friends do some colouring-in. Eating, chatting and looking around become more important than consuming performances.
This does mean it’s nigh on impossible to “review”. But my highlights were:
DJ Derek (mainly because he looks like my dead grandad but with better music taste and no racism). Not quite sure how old he is, but there he was at lunchtime blaring out Conroy Smith’s “Dangerous” and Nina Simone whilst chugging down cans of Red Stripe and chatting in great growly Bristol accent between the tracks.
Punch and Judy show in the kids tent. “Dad! He put the baby in the sausage-making machine!”
Tippa Irie – he still knows that it’s good to have the feeling you’re the best.
Hearing Mad Professor from my tent, half asleep, dropping “kunte kinte”.
St Etienne and the Ukulele Orchestra of GB, also heard from tent.
Norman Jay doing what Norman Jay does at the Big Chill.
The Strongbow tent, which provided an interesting conundrum for “no logo” types as it was the epitome of corporate branding but was really well designed (with small dancefloor instead of a cavern) and had some completely excellent sets on (for example some nice soul in the afternoon and some funky techno stuff in the early evening).
The lowlights were missing most of the stuff I wanted to see, especially Horace Andy, but then finding out he didn’t show up anyway. Hurrah!
BC always gets slagged off for being a bit cosy and middle class, which is probably fair enough. It’s not like I’m going to take a 3 year old to some illegal darkside drug-fuelled warehouse mash up, is it? I suppose the downside is that some people did seem pretty wealthy and glam and annoying. I was forced to listen to some twat announcing that he was increasingly coming to the conclusion that eugenics was the only way forward and that people who live on council estates should not have children, which is infinitely more offensive than the average conversations you get into with people in London boozers. Not that this was typical, but it did make me livid.
There were effectively two shifts operating at the event – over in “the family field” (Christ, what have I become? ;)) we got up with our kids and faffed about until they went to bed at about 8pm or whatever and then got a bit merry. Down the other end the ravers got up about midday and then did their thing (including dancing to Underground Resistance, the lucky gits) until 2am.
Being a parent does strange things to your thought processes… back in a London pub I ended up having this discussion with a mate after a meeting:
Her: So how was the rest of the festival?
Me: Yeah it was really good, though it can be a bit odd taking kids there, cos you don’t get to see all the stuff you want and have to think about bedtime and keeping them entertained and all that.
Her: Will you have another?
Me: No, I don’t think so, it’s too much work really…
Her: Eh?
Me: All the sleep deprivation and stuff…
Her: I meant “will you have another PINT?”
