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Big Chill @ Eastnor Castle 2007

Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th August 2007
Eastnor Castle, Ledbury, Herefordshire HR8 1RL, England MAP
adults £125, campervans £40 or £80, children £60; parking £5 - SOLD OUT

Now, don’t get me wrong, lovely sunshine is all well and good, but there are few things more disgusting than waking up all hot and sticky in a sweaty tent. Unfortunately this is one of the few downsides of the fabulous weather at this year’s The Big Chill. Though there are communal showers available, the queue for these is epic so I settle for a wet wipe wash and a squirt of deodorant before heading down to find some breakfast.

We settle down to munch at the Castle Stage where Ben Westbeech is playing to a smiley crowd who are up on their feet and dancing from the very start. The programme describes Ben’s stock in trade as “quirky, rough around the edges soul music” which sums it up rather well, actually. Today there’s an almost Balearic feel to this set from Westbeech, one of the protégées of Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings lable, and his music is a fitting soundtrack to the cloudless blue skies.



Next on the Castle Stage - and one of my personal highlights of last year’s Big Chill - are Tunng. This folktronica 6-piece play soft acoustic guitars, jagged glitch beats, a seemingly endless stream of percussion instruments and even children’s toys as they showcase new tracks from forthcoming album Broken Arrows alongside well-received favourites from 2006’s Comments of the Inner Chorus, including “Jenny Again” and “Woodcat.”



The much-hyped Seasick Steve was our next port of call on the Open Air Stage. Having heard so much hyperbole about this particular blues performer after his numerous festival performances this summer, I was expecting to be as disappointed as I usually am in such scenarios. But Steve’s set was a rare treat and rightly greeted with an ecstatic reception as the guitar-wielding troubadour played an old-fashioned rhythm and raw blues set inspired by his life as a hobo “on the tracks” in America’s Deep South. In performance his songs are punctuated with musings and anecdotes from his life and, like almost everyone else there, I left this hugely memorable performance thinking I would rather like to give him a big bear hug.

The Media Mix Tent was already filling up fast as we headed over to see DJ Yoda’s DVJ set and very soon it was one in, one out of the 5,000 capacity venue with even more people dancing outside. Yoda delivered one of the trademark chopped up hiphop/pop/country/soul/reggae party sets that made his name, including crowd-pleasing favourites like Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five” and Paul Simon’s “Call Me Al,” whilst simultaneously providing the visuals playing out on three huge screens above his head.

Back over at the Open Air Stage, Big Chill favourites Hexstatic were rounding the night off with a set of bonkers electronic trickery. Their funky beats and pictures are always popular with the festival crowd and this AV set was no exception as duo Robin Brunson & Stuart Warren-Hill showcased tracks from new album When Robots Go Bad to an extremely up-for-it audience.