This was my first Big Chill and it was beginning to look like my last as it was confirming all my worst preconceptions. A lot of artists just seemed to be getting away with a mix of dated cool jazz or DJ sets of their bland record collections. Aside from brilliant live sets by Murcof (check out the Martes album) and Luke Vibert working with a pedal steel player (and it weren’t crap Hawaian or Cuntry moosik) I had seen little to really stimulate me. However, I noted from the programme that The Bays are a band who don’t rehearse or have set lists, so thinking; “well it ain’t going to be shit garage punk at a festival of ambient & experimental music” decided it was worth a look.

The Bays are a 4 piece: bass, drums, keyboards, decks & programming. The drummer, Tango (orange wooly hat) sits in a cage of two intersecting steel elipses. VJing was done by Hexstatic, using Tango’s image as a centrepiece to various backgrounds. The set began with a statement by the bass player laying down The Bays’ ethos of not recording & touring albums or being signed, treating every performance as unique and telling the audience to copy the free CD they were going to hand around as much as they liked. The Bays wanted to encourage everyone to believe that anyone could make music. Oh God!!! WOMAD!!! Hippy alert!!!! But no! The Bays played an hour’s continuous set of a kind of crossover techno/rock. Then ending with a manic drum ‘n’ bass jam which sent the audience into St Vitus mode. Sorry that I can only offer 2 lines of description. Go see them for yourself, every gig is unique by definition.

Venue: Big Chill, Eastnor Castle Deer Park, Nr Ledbury, Herefordshire.
Date: 2nd August 2003