Big Chill Reportage….

Posted by Hot Coins on August 13th, 2009 filed in News, events

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Big Chill 2009 Report

Sorry it’s taken so long but here is my Big Chill Report. I have never been before so it was great to finally break my BC cherry and see what all the fuss was about. I have to say it far surpassed my expectations and is defo up there as one of my best festival experiences.

Friday- My friend Ric drove me and my girlfriend Tzitzi down to the festival – I was a bit stressed out tbh – I always feel like that on the way to festivals. Once the tent is pitched and the first drink is quaffed I usually feel fine. When you are playing at a festival you have the added worry of ‘will I get through all the artist shenanigans smoothly’ etc. As soon as we arrived and drove to the artist gate I was met by smiley and helpful Big Chill staff who couldn’t have been more helpful. My records were stickered up with my name and where I was playing and put in a secure lock up (next to Paul Whites I noticed). I was then told that on the day of my gig, I should report back to artist liaison 2 hours before my set and I would be driven with records to the gig. That’s how it should be done eh!

We had elected to camp with a big group of mates in the red field and the next mission was to find out where they had camped. My mate Harry had been there since thursday night so he came to find us and show us where to camp. The problem was that he was massively pissed so it took a fair bit of co-ordination to meet up. When we finally did though he was a massive help – he helped carry some stuff and then proceeded to help me put my tent up in a much more skilled fashion than I have ever managed. After some nice drinks we all headed out to the Coop (Dance tent) where I was just in time to hear the end of Slam, who were well… rather slamming. Maybe it’s because I was sober but I was struck by the fact that if you took the extreme volume away, hard loopy techno is a little bit dull to my ears these days. I am sure if I had been really wasted it would have been ace though…

Octave One Live at Big Chill 2009

Then it was time for one of THE highlights of the festival for me, Octave One. Now I am a big fan of Detroit music and I know Blackwater and I have seen footage of these guys playing live before from Split @ Cable but OMG – they were absolutely mindblowing. They managed to hit so many different bases in their flawless live set. Housey techno, techno-y house, proper swinging 2 step hats and big rolling basslines that locked you in to a serious stomping headsapce. We all got the proper scrunch face on and got some serious stepping in. Blackwater was obviously a big highlight with people singing along to the melody line but the biggest highlight for me was watching the unequivocal joy of the Burden Brothers shocking out behind their mixing desks. They were properly headbanging to their beats – makes a change from the usual bloke checking his emails laptop scenario.

After that we drifted back towards the tents and I think I was asleep by about 2.30am which was pretty impressive for me at a festival.

Saturday

The next day Tzitzi and I were properly introduced to all our fellow campers (who had all been out the night before when we arrived) and we spent the morning hanging out with them and eating a full english and drinking cups of tea. The sun was shining, the wasps were out en force. It was heaven!

Pharoah Sanders Live at Big Chill 2009

Then we hotfooted it down to the main stage for the next highlight of the festival Pharaoh Sanders. Now I am a bit of a closet jazz fan. I have always had more of a penchant for the more fuzzed out musings of the jazz funk and fusion era – Stanley Clarke, Herbie etc so it’s still a relatively nex experience when I get to hear some proper real deal jazz.

Pharoah didn’t disappoint my high expectations. We sat and ate chili cheese, bacon (leftover from the brekkie) and crisp sandwiches (well I did) followed by a round of extra juicy apples (thanks Asda) and heard sparkling renditions of ‘My Favourite Things’, ‘Freedom’ ‘Creator Has a Master Plan’ and…. some other ones I didn’t know! I enjoyed every second of it. The weather was ace, I was stone cold steve austin (that’s sober to you and I) and I really felt ‘the vibe’.

Next up was the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble who I enjoyed musically in parts and not really at all on the vocal tip. Seeing a live band of very capable players slipping into the familiar piccolo snare snap dry live drums and left side say hey right side say ho stuff made me realise how boring I find standard hip hop these days. As I was on the left side I was dubbed a ’superstar’ rather than ‘a rockstar’. My attitude to crowd participation is similar to games at parties. If it’s a good party/gig you don’t need any games!

Think this was at the Main Stage on Saturday..

We then heard some bits of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra who were ace and played that engaged phone tone track and some other bits I recognized. Then we drifted over to the Castle stage for another highlight of the festival for me – Mulatu and The Heliocentrics.

I have never heard Malcolm Catto play in real life. What a consummate professional! The band laid down plenty of languid, stoned, sprawling grooves during their set, which seemed way too short – always a good sign. Highlights for me were the amazing cello player (who bizarrely looks just like my boss from college who even more bizarrely appeared during my set on the bison stage on sunday – maybe he is the cello player lol) who did some ridiculous wayyyy too far down the strings solos, excellent percussion on the right particularly on the shekere, Malcolms effortless drumming and of course Mulatus gentle and dignified fronting of the band.

After a trip back to the tents for more food we caught a bit of Alice Russell who has seriously updated her stage show with plenty of slick choreography. It was sounding pretty good but we left when she went into a medley of hits like One Thing and Put A Ring On It which was a bit too populist and girly for our tastes.

So it was off to the Coop for the Horse Meat Disco thang. We caught the end of the Jim and Severinos’ set and it was sounding really nice. I hadn’t seen Jim since Snowbombing so we exchanged waves and rude gestures (it’s funny how I never thought to phone/text all the people I know who were at the festival – I hardly bumped into anyone I know yet made no effort to contact anyone doh) and then they handed over to Metro Area.

Now maybe it was because I had hyped them up to my girlfriend a bit too much and also my mate Alex Traska had been evangelical about their recent set at Fabric but I was a wee bit disappointed with what they played. I preferred Darshans selections but I kind of expected to be blown away. I did know quite a few things that they dropped but I felt it kind of lost momentum a bit after the Horse Meat guys. I am sure that they will knock my socks of next time I see them – I remain a massive fan of Metro Area.

Next up it was the turn of Hans-Peter Lindstrom- we caught the beginning of his set but I was kind of pre-occupied as I had bumped into an old mucker – David James from Jisco/Under The Shade. He spotted me to be fair as most of the times I have met him I have been rather worse for wear. We hadn’t seen each other for at least 2 years so we had a lot of catching up to do. So we drifted off towards Chris Duck in the Rizla arena and swapped familiar tales of music industry woe and the rampant cronyism sweeping our scene.

Chris was slamming it out in the Rizla area and I was just getting into it when my GF said she was tired so I walked her back to the tent. Once I got there I couldn’t be bothered to go back down and try to find everyone (I had texted everyone but no reply) so I went to bed. At midnight. Yes… I will repeat that again. I went to bed at midnight on a saturday night. At a festival. No one was more surprised than me.

Sunday

So as you can imagine, I awoke on Sunday fresh as a daisy (and received about 10 texts from everyone from the night before saying where they were – oh well it saved me from myself) and really excited about my 2 gigs. I was due to play at the Frisky Bison Stage from 7-9pm and then at the Big Chill FM radio station from 2-4am on the monday morning. We managed to get the rest of our food from the car (as Ric had gone massively awol after we arrived) and had the most idyllic lunch/dinner of hot dogs, cheese and tomato rolls, nuts, apples, bananas and tinned mustard and dill mackerel (big up John West) sat by the lake listening to Norman Jay play not my cup of tea drum and bass on the main stage.

Then we headed back to artist liaison at 5pm to pick up my records are were driven to the Bison stage in a landrover along with beatboxer Shlomo and his very friendly wife. We were met at the Bison stage by the super friendly artist liaison guy Phil who stashed my bags for me and gave us beers and we sat down and listened to Dom Servini play perfectly pitched latin/funk/disco set which got a bit wild at the end with some quite banging house gear.

Live @ Frisky Bison Stage, Big Chill 11/08/09

Then it was my turn to play. I really enjoyed my time playing at the Bison stage. There were quite a few people I knew in the crowd (some looking pretty worse for wear) from Notts, Leicester and Bristol so I gave them all shout outs on the mic and got down to it. I can’t remember much about my set as I was in the zone but I played things like Theos remix of LCD, This Time by Tuccillo (which was prob my top tune in both sets), quite a bit of Inverse Cinematics/Solid Groove/Seiji type bruk, Live Goes On by Soundstream, A Cup Of Coffee by Eddie and the Eggs, Bermuda Triangle by Spandex, the new Actress remix of Tom Trago, old El B Stuff and plenty more bangers.

He Doesn’t Look That Into It Does He!

I had a funny moment when Sam Floating Points texted me saying ‘U on now? I can hear U!’. I though he was still at the festival so I texted him back to say come and say hello. He replied ‘I am at home already’ and I suddenly realised that it was being streamed live from the festival! The funny thing was that I had been on the mic a fair bit during my set saying such gems as ‘I have seen better dancing in an old folks home’ so it was funny to suddenly remember that it was being broadcasted too!

As the sun began to set I realised that my 2 hours was pretty much up so I finished with Moskow Disko and an acid track by Plus Device and handed over to the able trio of Futureboogie boys. I spent most of their set saying thanks to all the people I knew in the crowd who had come to show some support and then me, Phil (artist liaison don from the bison stage) and my girlfriend took the short walk up to the radio station (short when you’re in the artists enclosure bit!) and stashed my records for the gig later.

David Byrne Live at Big Chill 2009

Then we headed to see David Byrne and before we got to the exit from the backstage corridor bit, I spotted an amazing little ‘private booth’ between 2 portacabins which was directly behind the crowd at the main stage but as it was further up the hill, we were elevated about 7 feet above the crowd so we had a clear view of the stage and the screens. It was lovely watching the set and all those amazing fireworks going off. I really enjoyed the set and although the fey dancers got on my tits a bit, I appreciated that it added a more visual element to the set.

Greg Explains The Meaning Of Life

After that we went back to the Bison stage to witness Greg Wilsons dancefloor demolition. It was defo one of the best sets I have heard Greg play and people were queuing up to pay their respects at the end. My one slight sad moment was when Greg asked ‘did you hear it then’ and I knew then that he had played my remix of Joubert Singers ‘. It would have been lovely to get to hear him play it again in such an ace setting.

Greg Rocking It

After Greg finished we headed over to the Big Chill FM radio station where I was greeted by Paul Noble, Seb and the rest of the radio crew. I walked into the radio studio/caravan thing and was immediately excited about my impending gig. Paul was playing some ace deep slo mo house off serato so I knew I could play it as out there as I liked.

Big Chill FM 2-4am 10/08/09

As with the Bison set the 2 hours flashed past but I can remember thinking that it was the best time I had ever had in my life. Highlights included my forthcoming single Place For Me on Autodiscoteque which I played out for the first time on vinyl (sounded sick – thank you Matt Colton!), Eagle by Linkwood smashed it, Vacuum Boogie had people running to the booth asking what it was, Deep Blue Meanies by Juju and Jordash took the roof off as it did at Glastonbury, the new YSE/Bleep District stuff sounded ace, I also dropped loads of old Chez Damier/Ron Trent Prescption stuff and loads of old 2 step from Zed Bias, Landslide and El B. The crowd outside were amazing – the requests for dubstep soon stopped and the very young crowd got down to the old school house/garage/2 step stuff – which I personally found really encouraging as I wasn’t playing anything they were likely to know.

The ACE Crowd Outside The Radio Station

Both sets were recorded so hopefully they will see the light of day. I would love to hear the radio set again as it was pretty slamming and I didn’t get on the mic much at all this time!

The end of course came round far too quickly but I just want to say a MASSIVE thanks to everyone who came to see me play at both the Bison stage and Big Chill FM. It made such a difference having people coming up and saying hello and showing support.

What’s This One Called?

After I finished I was on a massive high and had a good hours worth of cleaning up my records ahead of me. Massive thanks to Seb who drove us the 2 miles back to our tent in a golf buggy – what a star – I don’t think I would have made it at that time of night…

So that’s it really. I hope this report gives some indication of what an amazing weekend it was!

Sunshine, smiling faces, some great music and meeting loads of ace new people. I felt like I could run a marathon when I woke up on monday morning even though I had only had about 2 hours sleep.

Just want to say massive thanks to Shep, Paul, Phil, Suzi, Guy, Seb, Ian and everyone else at the Big Chill for making it such a special time.

And once again massive big ups to all who I met/hung out with/drank with/danced with/sunbathed with etc…