Think of the platonic ideal of a picnic spot, throw in a few of the best names in downtempo, twisted beats, folk and chillout to provide the soundtrack and an awful lot of floaty material and you’re on the right track.

The Big Chill is the festival you always wanted to go to, the one without the massive corporate sponsorship or the articulated trucks with Rizla or the name of some phone company emblazoned metres high and dominating the skyline, without waist-deep litter on the final day, and without leary drunks spitting and stumbling their way to the next bar.

It’s the one where you can find space to breathe (27,000 people spread out over a few hundred acres of rolling greenness in the Malvern Hills made the event more like an extended walk in the park with a few close friends/ people you wouldn’t mind being friends with), where the vibe is laid-back to horizontal in the Enchanted Garden and the Body and Soul encampments, keyed up in the Club Tent and just plain trippy on the Art Trail.

So, highlights: Norman Jay’s Sunday morning set that pulled a crowd tired from three days hitting it hard back to life and ready to dance another day; Lou Rhodes’ (formerly of Lamb) folky brilliance and Fink’s acoustic melancholia; Nizlopi’s perfect mid-afternoon festival friendly set, and the situational advantage (the hills to all sides blocked most people’s phone signal so radio silence was enforced for the most part - something you can only appreciate properly when it’s forced on you).

There were far too many DJs and bands to get through and more chill than you could shake a poi at. Wandering from the orchestral charms of Max Richter through a storming Mr Scruff set to catch the last twenty minutes of Tunng it would have been easy to be overcome by choice fatigue, but then that would have been unbecoming of a newly inducted ‘chiller’. And if the music all got a little too heavy there was always the healing area, the art trail featuring Martin Richman’s excellent light installation and Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings, or just lying back on the grass. Chilling.

The strength of the Big Chill lies in its family friendly appeal to those with young chillitos and chillitas and in its choice: of venue; of its limited capacity; of the huge variety and quality of food, and above all of music, catering for folk fans (with Martin Carthy, Tunng, Adem), to dance fanatics (Cosmic Fury, Coldcut, Quantic and the Unabombers) to literary and poetry buffs (who could enjoy poetess par excellence Ursula Rucker, music writer Joe Boyd and beat poet Dick McBride).

Sitting in stationary traffic on the M40 late on Sunday evening it was hard not to turn the car around and disappear back into the Malvern Hills with my festival uke, sarong and arms stretched wide ready to hug some more trees. The Big Chill: it’s not just a festival, it’s a way of life.

Links:
The Big Chill
Amnesty International