The Baillie Bugle

The Big Chill was everything it said it was. Absolutely, utterly cool.
And big. And very chilled. We got back last night feeling like nothing in the world could burst our bubble of calm.

We listened to an incredible amount of excellent music, and even when we weren’t camped out in the glorious sunshine right in front of the artists it was always there in the background as we wandered around the site looking at and doing cool things.

There was a half-mile long arts trail behind the main festival that had some really interesting exhibits, among which was ‘The last 3600 seconds of wasp’.
Glass in the dark, you can’t beat it!

I think our favourite destination of the weekend though was the Punch Drunk tent, which had a host of exciting and diverse things going on, like porn films from turn of the last century, a really tight free jazz band playing marathon sessions in a variety of head wear and what looked like a brothel in a tent. (If anyone knows what happened if you queued to ‘spend time’ with one of the ladies could you e-mail me and let me know?)

Behind the Punch Drunk tent was a weird village-of-the-damned type set up, with a carnival, a church, a bank and a secret lounge complete with actors playing out their freakishly white-faced parts. I failed to Pin the Poncho on the Prussian but did manage to buy some Rocking Robbins from the sweet shop. And if anyone reading this ventured through the Walk of Terror or Journey or the Damned I hope it scared you at least half as much as it did me.

Favourites of the weekend then, in terms of music, where The Bays, Roisin Murphy and Robert Fripp.

(We missed Leggo Beast, despite being told by an elderly steward that they were great, but did catch the Burlesque show which I think may have made up for it).

If you ever get a chance to check out the stuff that was going on in the Punch Drunk tent or the creepy village – leap! I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!

And I cannot recommend the Big Chill enough.
See you next year.