Argghhh! Panic! The festival industry is dying! Run for the hills (well, the cities)! So, then Big Chill- what are you about? Should we be impressed or not?
You're run by Festival Republic who really aren't the leftwing revolutionary group that?your name would like?us to infer, but your line-up isn't exactly the warmed up Radio 1 tedium soup of V.
If our weekend was anything to go by, it's where the kind of punters who used to frequent Glastonbury now like to er.. chill.
They may be from a different generation but the crowd at Big Chill are the same friendly, tasteful and, importantly, hedonistic crowd that Eavis used to woo. Imagine a Glastonbury where it's small enough that parents can walk with the children from the kids? area to see a band in the arena without three days worth of rations and survival training.
Those without children can party hard into the early hours, relaxed in the knowledge that the friendly security staff are there for your actual safety and not to police you to ensure your ?safety?.
Okay, so the organisers seem to have taken a gamble and splashed out on Kanye West at the expense of interesting mid-level main stage acts but in doing so, they may have sold enough tickets to ensure its future.
Hecklerspray spent most of the time enjoying dubstep and drum and bass into the early hours although our favourite DJ set of the weekend was Alex Metric and his selection of electro house in the Bacardi Tent.
we're embarrassed to say that we didn't see as many of the live acts as we normally do. Fine by us since we got our kicks regardless, but it might make the review a little less interesting. Don’t worry, we’re not going to review the DJs.
Friday?s main stage boasted Empire of the Sun purveying us with their psychedelic pop?to a visual feast that matched the admirably pretentious noise they make. Whilst they garnered hyperbole from many quarters with their debut album, like their psych-pop brethren MGMT we thought it was filler with some hidden gems. Looking absurdly out of place and over the top on a stage in Herefordshire however they make total sense. Perhaps a revisit to the album is in order?
It seems obvious to point out how good the Chemical Brothers are live these days. Although to be honest we don't think anyone could balls up if they had (a) their back catalogue (b) a field full of people ready for a party. You do the math(s).
The first act we caught on the Saturday was Janelle Monae, whose album is easier to admire than love on account of it not sounding like anyone else. Shut up, idiot reviewer and sum it up in one of those pithy hack metaphors you lot love! Okay- if Andre 3000 had kept R & B in a cellar from 1981 to 2004, not allowed it to hear the radio during that time but had instead just continuously humped its leg like a horny puppy, it would sound like Janelle Monae. Except the bit about leg humping, but it's the sort of thing he'd probably do. And it's definitely something he'd pull off. Live, it all just sounded like the sort of thing that gets Jools Holland aroused.
As soon as Jessie J starts, a cavernous generation gap cracks open through the field. 500 cool teenagers (and about 100 uncool adults) stand on one side swearing at us and quoting internet memes that we don't understand. On our side it's just us, trying to decapitate them with records made by people with lesser voices who make genuinely great pop music.
We’re sure Kanye West has good reason for being thirty minutes late, but that doesn't make it seem any less inevitable. We would like to think he was somewhere nearby and could hear the the cries of ?do you like fishsticks?? but suspect he was probably having a pedicure whilst lying on a bed of velvet-skinned eunuchs or whatever it is that the mega-rich do these days.
His current stage show consists of various dancers running around a white stage whilst he plays songs whose lyrical content can be summed up as ?I'm a genius/No I'm a douche? and ?You bitch, you betrayed me/to be fair it was all my fault?. Luckily, portraying himself in two dimensions with interesting, if clumsy, lyrics to faultless production, is a hell of a lot more interesting than so many of his peers portraying themselves in one dimension with predictable, if well structured, lyrics to average production. This being the case, why are we not feeling it? Is this not the man that delivered arguably the best album of last year? Why do we feel like we're watching a good performance on TV, hard to find fault with but ultimately uninvolving? The answer is presence. Kanye is a studio nerd, not a rock star. All that awkwardness that makes him so fascinating in his songs has the opposite effect on a stage. He's not poor as such but as international superstar Kanye West, we have a certain expectations.
Oh well, we’re sure if he reads this, he?ll take it well- we hear he's good with criticism.
He also has the worst finale of any set we've witnessed. After a daft dedication to a series of dead people (McQueen, Winehouse and Jackson if you're interested), he played half of two Amy Winehouse songs. Not performed, just played the original versions over the loudspeakers. Say what you want about Elton John, but at least he thought the corpse du jour deserved the effort of singing.
Besides, if we have to hear someone else?s records can he not just leave, and let 2ManyDJs start on time? Eventually the Belgian Soulwaxers arrive and play a typically astonishing set, with songs they've remixed for maximum power and with specific visuals. The two guys next to us sum it up best-
?Are we watching two men who have come from Belgium just to press play on a mix CD??
?Shut up and keep dancing, it's still awesome and shits on Kanye West?.
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