Big Chill 2006
I’m pleased to report that the Brize Norton ‘Barley’ cloning project has been a resounding success this year with its ubiquitous progeny roaming the festival site like obnoxious Etonians after overdosing on too much toluene. The knob contingent was definitely ‘up’ this time, as too were the end of most sentences? I’m sure that in some parallel Shoreditch universe two aviator shaded quiffs are discussing, ‘that-tall-bloke-in-the-straw-hat-and-beads-who-had-his-hands-in-the-air-all-the-time-preventing-us-from-bloody-seeing-anything-at-all!’, but that’s something I can live with. And besides if your lick-spittle Tory Father hadn’t mated with that equine anamorphic fuckwit in the first place you might have been able to see past your chin you gopping, gawping inbred moron! Hello also to the flump-nosed Cheshire munter (Mancunian wish-it-was-bollocks) who seemed to think that the more gak you imbibe allows you to become as erudite and compelling as a Peter Ustinov after dinner speech given to the Tsar of Moldova. No love, it makes you sound like a bug-eyed chip shop simpleton with an arse full of razor blades. Now get back to cleaning the toilets you chisel-voiced Harpy (sic) Shopper.
And talking of toilets, the trap pirouette manoeuvre required when faced with the Mount Vesuvius of all gastric upsets truly deserved a medal. ‘Please, could everyone remember to flush the toilets?’ pleaded MC Purple Willowy Katy Waty, as if the thought of levering away twenty four hours worth of strangers’ ‘royal decrees’ was somehow a noble task to be attempted with gravitas and severity. Cheers love but I’d rather just go behind that ‘Make Us A Brew’ tent if it’s all the same with you?
DJ Jacquamore elicits some early morning cheers by ‘dropping’ Land Of Hope And Glory replete with ‘scratches’ and Scorpion-tastic, ‘Come Ons!’ to the crowd. A Foxy lady indeed. Roger Eno follows and characteristically blinds everyone with augmented fourths, philanthropic fifths and salty seadog ballads about court Jesters in the 16th century court of the Crimson King, as played by Nyman and Fripp (not the solicitors).
Five long haired Victorian waifs murder the Ramone’s back-catalogue in an orange beach shelter and we all throw our shillings into their hat with a knowing wink that we’re/they’re* having the last laugh. *delete where appropriate, depending on your grasp of post-modern irony. A spindly freak-child in an ill-fitting Chaplin suit wafts a toy guitar under our noses (no, not Jose Gonzalez) and expects payment for doing just that. The entertainment better pick up!
Wait! Something wicked this way comes. Tuung were great. All glitchy, edgy electronica, Fisher Price solos and dark folk tales from the cruel heart of England. Like Aphex Twin covering The Wickerman soundtrack from a Dartmoor Tavern. Beautiful crazy. And sticking to things of a…ahem! ‘folky’nature, it was a real pleasure to catch the legendary Vashti Bunyan play the most intimately public set I’ve ever witnessed. Chronic shyness mixed with what seemed to be the sheer disbelief that people were actually discovering her music again – albeit from ‘that’ advert – didn’t fail to dispel the myth that she is still a live force to be reckoned with. As fragile as gossamer and as delicate as the morning dew, this was indeed spellbinding stuff.
Watching Lou Rhodes climax with Gabrielle was a moment as was catching Mozez parting the seize (sic): thou shalt not compare him to Al Green though. One Krakenwagon for a Bruk Beane was the word on the street and the tatrazine eyes of Pete Lawrence calmly survey proceedings stage left.
In Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, we have a porch song singer with an impressive arsenal of torch songs. He battles his personal demons in a very public way; batting then away with his guitar as if swatting mosquitoes. No Up With People – the South will rise above it again – but we’re treated to some quality buckled Western sewer-funk of the first order.
Feel the three-headed rave hydra of X-Press 2! We could be in Homelands, and this is no bad thing. Coming on like Kraftwerk meets the sound of the Hoover they annihilated the field with a mighty mighty sound. Resistance is useless. Time to dig out the Smoke Machine once more. Phil Mison closes the Finlandia with a masterful set of balearica and when Il Veliero comes into the mix our collective hands rise skyward once more.
Darkness at Noon. Pritchard warms the decidedly overcast midday weather up with a stunning collection of psych, funk, folk and soul. Pentangle’s Light Flight has never sounded better. He passes the baton over to his old Jedi Mukka Middleton who quite literally uses it to orchestrate his orchestra now assembled stage right. Moonbathing has always been a personal favourite so it was great to see his Amba project tackle it live, embellishing the original with lush strings.
Arrested Development? Yawn! I’d rather watch paint dry. So we do. Stuckist in the Middle with You. Wave your brush in the air like you just don’t care. Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1899. Pass the Absinthe, Van!
Green Gartside, once a fey, foppish Sylvian-a-like, wouldn’t look out of place in a death metal band nowadays, with the ubiquitous outgrown scraggy goatee beard and black combat shorts in full effect. He apologises for the swearing before launching into a cod-gangsta rap rock out. The Word Girl it ain’t. A voluminous papier-mache flying saucer drifts by, held aloft by half the children’s field along with two stilt walkers and a complete Punch and Judy show. Poor bloke’s just got over his stage fright and that’s all he needs.
Jose Padilla killed it.
Simple.
Effortlessly moving through all styles here was a man at the top of his game. We partied like dervishes in the Del Mar mosh pit, especially when The New Radicals was dropped. Time for one more? The Whole of the Moon! Played to death at student indie discos the world over but he made it sound fresh, new and vital. Smiles all round. Big love to Patu and Patricia who were stalwart company all weekend, this shared moment was something very special though.
I would have paid good money to have been a fly on the wall – well tree – when arch nemesis of Mr Wheel, A Skillz asked our very own BAOL Brother if he’d seen A Skillz play and what he thought of his set! The ego has landed! Bit of humility goes a long way mate; especially when you look like the bastard son of Rod Hull!
I decided against restoring my Chi balance with aricular acupuncture and having my membranes, fluids, bones and fascia balanced with a cranial sacral and just got kippered by the lake instead. Shout to Vicky and Tony. Big big Love! A beautiful evening with Les Nuits drifting in from the main stage and off over the cool misty waters. The sylph like water nymphs tripped the light fandango and turned cartwheels into the local field. ‘
Common misconceptions will be left at the door, and Sparks won’t come from Germany anymore’. My only conception was to have my misconceptions challenged by the purveyors of pure pomp pop and when they were I wandered off to check out Steve Reid and Kieran Hebden. I laughed snobbishly at people searching for a song within the miasma of their sound and chuckled heartily at the people who didn’t ‘get it’ as I tapped my foot asymmetrically and hummed along rather obliquely.
Apparently police are still looking for the perpetrators of Sunday afternoon’s terrible and dreadful criminal incident where, half way through his lush warm up set, Norman Jay was kidnapped and replaced with Ed Rush and Optical. Anyone with any information should contact the usual authorities.
Lily Allen was good festival fun and Nicole Willis sounded lush in the afternoon breeze with her full-on backing band The Soul Investigators.
This year’s ‘Aficionado’ moment goes to Quiet Village, who were quite simply fucking awesome. Dropping their own stunning CDR business, classic disco, funk, rock and afro-cosmic pieces they ruled the Fat Tuesday area for 2 magnificent hours. Mindless Boogie, Whole Lotta Love, Texas Radio and Tiny Dancer were some of the highlights I recognised.
Robert Owens sang along beautifully to his own DJ set – rather like an anti-karaoke show – and Marc Mac dropped the classics. Unfortunately I missed Gilles so later on I went to a Jazz confessional and said three hail Zingers to make amends.
We waited in the warm drizzle by the lip of the main stage for Deodato and The Heritage Orchestra. There was a wonderful, palatable but indescribable sense of electricity hanging in the warm night air; a bit like waiting for your favourite rock band when you’re a sixteen year old kid. Gradually and rather painstakingly the huge orchestra took to their seats and then something wonderful happened. The rain stopped and they started. For just over an hour wave upon wave of pure orchestral might crashed down upon us and we were mere matchstick castaways washed up up and away on the plunging (and rising) tides of their musical power and might. It was utterly fucking spellbinding. When Deodato appeared – an unassuming man, rather like an Antibes boat captain on his day off – and began those classic rumbling chords of, Thus Sprach Zarathustra, we knew we were witnessing something very special indeed. He stabbed away at his keys with the zest, passion and love of a musician completely besotted with his art. It built and built and built into loving crescendo upon crescendo of pure emotion and then gently petered out into a guitar solo here and a bass solo there and then finally Deodato’s very own keyboard solo which deservedly took pride of place. We knew we were witnessing something truly magical, and when the final mighty refrain of 2001 thundered into the night air we were mere apes throwing not bones of contention, but hands of love skyward. It clearly couldn’t get any better but it did. Les Fleur!! I couldn’t give a flying fuck if it doesn’t sound any good on play back anymore or if You Tube suggests she’s off key. It was all about that mighty majestic definitive performance that evening. Simple. It sounded like the most incredible, powerful, emotive, moving live cover version of a song I’ve/we’ve ever witnessed, and for that I have nothing but pure respect for all involved.
Big Love to Slim.A top man, always a pleasure sir. Big Love to Specialeggmoonkey and your balearic Weetabix tent of happiness. Big love to my mate Ian, who suffered/enjoyed a Big Chill epiphany over the course of the weekend. Big Love to Patu and Patricia = Stars. Big love to Princess Conzeua…Consuer…Laura…Big Love to Neil and ‘Don’t bang that peg in too hard’ Amanda’. Big Love to Jim and Kerry. Bruk Big Love to Beane, and last but no means least Massive Big Love and early morning full fry up respect to Steve and Kathy who are pure class in a glass.
I’m pleased to report that the Brize Norton ‘Barley’ cloning project has been a resounding success this year with its ubiquitous progeny roaming the festival site like obnoxious Etonians after overdosing on too much toluene. The knob contingent was definitely ‘up’ this time, as too were the end of most sentences? I’m sure that in some parallel Shoreditch universe two aviator shaded quiffs are discussing, ‘that-tall-bloke-in-the-straw-hat-and-beads-who-had-his-hands-in-the-air-all-the-time-preventing-us-from-bloody-seeing-anything-at-all!’, but that’s something I can live with. And besides if your lick-spittle Tory Father hadn’t mated with that equine anamorphic fuckwit in the first place you might have been able to see past your chin you gopping, gawping inbred moron! Hello also to the flump-nosed Cheshire munter (Mancunian wish-it-was-bollocks) who seemed to think that the more gak you imbibe allows you to become as erudite and compelling as a Peter Ustinov after dinner speech given to the Tsar of Moldova. No love, it makes you sound like a bug-eyed chip shop simpleton with an arse full of razor blades. Now get back to cleaning the toilets you chisel-voiced Harpy (sic) Shopper.
And talking of toilets, the trap pirouette manoeuvre required when faced with the Mount Vesuvius of all gastric upsets truly deserved a medal. ‘Please, could everyone remember to flush the toilets?’ pleaded MC Purple Willowy Katy Waty, as if the thought of levering away twenty four hours worth of strangers’ ‘royal decrees’ was somehow a noble task to be attempted with gravitas and severity. Cheers love but I’d rather just go behind that ‘Make Us A Brew’ tent if it’s all the same with you?
DJ Jacquamore elicits some early morning cheers by ‘dropping’ Land Of Hope And Glory replete with ‘scratches’ and Scorpion-tastic, ‘Come Ons!’ to the crowd. A Foxy lady indeed. Roger Eno follows and characteristically blinds everyone with augmented fourths, philanthropic fifths and salty seadog ballads about court Jesters in the 16th century court of the Crimson King, as played by Nyman and Fripp (not the solicitors).
Five long haired Victorian waifs murder the Ramone’s back-catalogue in an orange beach shelter and we all throw our shillings into their hat with a knowing wink that we’re/they’re* having the last laugh. *delete where appropriate, depending on your grasp of post-modern irony. A spindly freak-child in an ill-fitting Chaplin suit wafts a toy guitar under our noses (no, not Jose Gonzalez) and expects payment for doing just that. The entertainment better pick up!
Wait! Something wicked this way comes. Tuung were great. All glitchy, edgy electronica, Fisher Price solos and dark folk tales from the cruel heart of England. Like Aphex Twin covering The Wickerman soundtrack from a Dartmoor Tavern. Beautiful crazy. And sticking to things of a…ahem! ‘folky’nature, it was a real pleasure to catch the legendary Vashti Bunyan play the most intimately public set I’ve ever witnessed. Chronic shyness mixed with what seemed to be the sheer disbelief that people were actually discovering her music again – albeit from ‘that’ advert – didn’t fail to dispel the myth that she is still a live force to be reckoned with. As fragile as gossamer and as delicate as the morning dew, this was indeed spellbinding stuff.
Watching Lou Rhodes climax with Gabrielle was a moment as was catching Mozez parting the seize (sic): thou shalt not compare him to Al Green though. One Krakenwagon for a Bruk Beane was the word on the street and the tatrazine eyes of Pete Lawrence calmly survey proceedings stage left.
In Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, we have a porch song singer with an impressive arsenal of torch songs. He battles his personal demons in a very public way; batting then away with his guitar as if swatting mosquitoes. No Up With People – the South will rise above it again – but we’re treated to some quality buckled Western sewer-funk of the first order.
Feel the three-headed rave hydra of X-Press 2! We could be in Homelands, and this is no bad thing. Coming on like Kraftwerk meets the sound of the Hoover they annihilated the field with a mighty mighty sound. Resistance is useless. Time to dig out the Smoke Machine once more. Phil Mison closes the Finlandia with a masterful set of balearica and when Il Veliero comes into the mix our collective hands rise skyward once more.
Darkness at Noon. Pritchard warms the decidedly overcast midday weather up with a stunning collection of psych, funk, folk and soul. Pentangle’s Light Flight has never sounded better. He passes the baton over to his old Jedi Mukka Middleton who quite literally uses it to orchestrate his orchestra now assembled stage right. Moonbathing has always been a personal favourite so it was great to see his Amba project tackle it live, embellishing the original with lush strings.
Arrested Development? Yawn! I’d rather watch paint dry. So we do. Stuckist in the Middle with You. Wave your brush in the air like you just don’t care. Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1899. Pass the Absinthe, Van!
Green Gartside, once a fey, foppish Sylvian-a-like, wouldn’t look out of place in a death metal band nowadays, with the ubiquitous outgrown scraggy goatee beard and black combat shorts in full effect. He apologises for the swearing before launching into a cod-gangsta rap rock out. The Word Girl it ain’t. A voluminous papier-mache flying saucer drifts by, held aloft by half the children’s field along with two stilt walkers and a complete Punch and Judy show. Poor bloke’s just got over his stage fright and that’s all he needs.
Jose Padilla killed it.
Simple.
Effortlessly moving through all styles here was a man at the top of his game. We partied like dervishes in the Del Mar mosh pit, especially when The New Radicals was dropped. Time for one more? The Whole of the Moon! Played to death at student indie discos the world over but he made it sound fresh, new and vital. Smiles all round. Big love to Patu and Patricia who were stalwart company all weekend, this shared moment was something very special though.
I would have paid good money to have been a fly on the wall – well tree – when arch nemesis of Mr Wheel, A Skillz asked our very own BAOL Brother if he’d seen A Skillz play and what he thought of his set! The ego has landed! Bit of humility goes a long way mate; especially when you look like the bastard son of Rod Hull!
I decided against restoring my Chi balance with aricular acupuncture and having my membranes, fluids, bones and fascia balanced with a cranial sacral and just got kippered by the lake instead. Shout to Vicky and Tony. Big big Love! A beautiful evening with Les Nuits drifting in from the main stage and off over the cool misty waters. The sylph like water nymphs tripped the light fandango and turned cartwheels into the local field. ‘
Common misconceptions will be left at the door, and Sparks won’t come from Germany anymore’. My only conception was to have my misconceptions challenged by the purveyors of pure pomp pop and when they were I wandered off to check out Steve Reid and Kieran Hebden. I laughed snobbishly at people searching for a song within the miasma of their sound and chuckled heartily at the people who didn’t ‘get it’ as I tapped my foot asymmetrically and hummed along rather obliquely.
Apparently police are still looking for the perpetrators of Sunday afternoon’s terrible and dreadful criminal incident where, half way through his lush warm up set, Norman Jay was kidnapped and replaced with Ed Rush and Optical. Anyone with any information should contact the usual authorities.
Lily Allen was good festival fun and Nicole Willis sounded lush in the afternoon breeze with her full-on backing band The Soul Investigators.
This year’s ‘Aficionado’ moment goes to Quiet Village, who were quite simply fucking awesome. Dropping their own stunning CDR business, classic disco, funk, rock and afro-cosmic pieces they ruled the Fat Tuesday area for 2 magnificent hours. Mindless Boogie, Whole Lotta Love, Texas Radio and Tiny Dancer were some of the highlights I recognised.
Robert Owens sang along beautifully to his own DJ set – rather like an anti-karaoke show – and Marc Mac dropped the classics. Unfortunately I missed Gilles so later on I went to a Jazz confessional and said three hail Zingers to make amends.
We waited in the warm drizzle by the lip of the main stage for Deodato and The Heritage Orchestra. There was a wonderful, palatable but indescribable sense of electricity hanging in the warm night air; a bit like waiting for your favourite rock band when you’re a sixteen year old kid. Gradually and rather painstakingly the huge orchestra took to their seats and then something wonderful happened. The rain stopped and they started. For just over an hour wave upon wave of pure orchestral might crashed down upon us and we were mere matchstick castaways washed up up and away on the plunging (and rising) tides of their musical power and might. It was utterly fucking spellbinding. When Deodato appeared – an unassuming man, rather like an Antibes boat captain on his day off – and began those classic rumbling chords of, Thus Sprach Zarathustra, we knew we were witnessing something very special indeed. He stabbed away at his keys with the zest, passion and love of a musician completely besotted with his art. It built and built and built into loving crescendo upon crescendo of pure emotion and then gently petered out into a guitar solo here and a bass solo there and then finally Deodato’s very own keyboard solo which deservedly took pride of place. We knew we were witnessing something truly magical, and when the final mighty refrain of 2001 thundered into the night air we were mere apes throwing not bones of contention, but hands of love skyward. It clearly couldn’t get any better but it did. Les Fleur!! I couldn’t give a flying fuck if it doesn’t sound any good on play back anymore or if You Tube suggests she’s off key. It was all about that mighty majestic definitive performance that evening. Simple. It sounded like the most incredible, powerful, emotive, moving live cover version of a song I’ve/we’ve ever witnessed, and for that I have nothing but pure respect for all involved.
Big Love to Slim.A top man, always a pleasure sir. Big Love to Specialeggmoonkey and your balearic Weetabix tent of happiness. Big love to my mate Ian, who suffered/enjoyed a Big Chill epiphany over the course of the weekend. Big Love to Patu and Patricia = Stars. Big love to Princess Conzeua…Consuer…Laura…Big Love to Neil and ‘Don’t bang that peg in too hard’ Amanda’. Big Love to Jim and Kerry. Bruk Big Love to Beane, and last but no means least Massive Big Love and early morning full fry up respect to Steve and Kathy who are pure class in a glass.
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