Camden Music: The Big Chill

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The Review - MUSIC - grooves with CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 24 July 2008

Katrina Larkin

The chill that just gets bigger

PREVIEW: THE BIG CHILL
Eastnor Castle
Herefordshire

FROM A smoky back room in a crumbling Islington church to wide open fields overlooked by a 200-year-old castle, the Big Chill has come some way since it first started back in the early 1990s.
Katrina Larkin, who along with partner Pete Lawrence is the brains behind this staple of the summer festival scene, says despite the numbers rising form 50 close mates packed into the Union Chapel on Sundays in Upper Street to 10,000 party people in a deer park, the idea is exactly the same.
“Its the same people, the same idea and the same vibe,” she says. “The only difference is the Chill family has got bigger.”
Eastnor Castle hosted the first Big Chill festival in 1995 and since then it has become a regular fixture on the summer circuit.
Katrina, from Camden Town, has always prided herself on the eclectic mix of acts and performances they book: it manages to boot out the idea that a festival has to have a particular genre. Instead they go for things they fancy.
The mix is wide. From deep house with the Thievery Corporation through African dance band Orchestra Baobob, Detroit DJ Derrick Carter to Roisin Murphy, The Orb and Norman Jay, all boxes are ticked.
Highlights for Katrina include Islington-based poet John Hegley and Highgate comedy troupe The Mighty Boosh crew.
Although Glastonbury took a while to sell out this year for the first time in its history, the relatively dry weather has had a knock-on effect for other events.
“I think Glastonbury was so successful that a lot of people who were thinking they didn’t fancy festivals this year are now getting in touch,” she says. “The buzz is really back.” It never went away for Katrina.

* The Big Chill, Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire, August 1-3. www.thebigchill.net

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