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Beachdown Festival was born in Brighton in August this year in possibly one of the most beautiful festival locations on the planet. High up on the hills of Devils Dyke in the South Downs, the site overlooked the city of Brighton, and the deep blue sea beyond that..

Day One – Thursday

We arrived with plenty of time to pitch our tent and watch the sun go down, but the atmosphere of the festival goers was not one I was used to. Many people seemed to be pitching up a tent, only to be going home to their warm bed that evening, so we were asked to keep eye on a couple of neighbours temporary homes whilst they went home for a nice meal.

The mood of those who were staying, though, seemed to be one of a downer….there were no familiar festival-waves (the whooping and cheering) that you hear at Glastonbury, or the “bollocks” chants that you may hear at Reading (which co-incidentally was happening the same weekend). The revellers were clumping around with theirs heads staring at the feet – we attempted to help people get into the mood by running an open mike competition and filming it….but most people seemed more happy to grunt at us. We soon found out that a few thousand people had been queuing for hours throughout the day to get in to the site, which had delayed the opening after poor weather conditions earlier in the week had meant the lorries had been unable to climb the steep hills.

Hunger was starting to kick in, so we went on a burger hut – but there was no burger van around as they were not being let on site. So, there were a few thousand hungry people wandering around and moaning like fuck…..but it wasn’t long before rumour spread that a burger van had arrived….our photographer, Toby, made a drunken dash to line his stomach with the dodgiest burger of the weekend (it was to get much better later)… Anyway, our open mike contest didn’t really go down too well, and those that did join in were more intent on shoving stuff up their noses and falling into and ripping our tent. We were also told to extinguish a tea light candle that we’d put on the floor by a jobsworthy steward who clearly didn’t want anybody to have any fun (maybe the same steward who would only let groups of 4 take in 4 cans of lager – 1 each, what a laugh that is!)…..apparently it was OK to have a disposable barbeque flaming away just a couple of feet away from flammable tents….but not OK for a tealight to be placed on some damp grass/mud. Fuck this for a laugh, we all got our heads down and prayed that Friday, the first proper day, would get better.

Day Two – Friday

I woke up to Toby stitching up our tent after an ‘unknown ginger guy’ had fallen through it, almost squashing Toby in the process. We suspect it was the same ginger guy who avoided us for the rest of the weekend, but was the most polite and friendly guy whenever we did speak to him – guilty conscious perhaps?!

Anyway, the main festival site was open and it was time to explore…..the first thing that jumps out is what a huge fucking site we are in….I wondered if I had the strength and stamina to last until Monday night.

I knew we had a weekend of amazing bands to look forward to, but first I wanted to check out the stalls….the most interesting one being a condom shop selling an array of different condoms: gay condoms, extra large condoms, extra thin condoms and even extra small ones. Next to the condom store was a store selling a variety of toys that ladies could buy to pleasure themselves. Now, why any lady wants to buy those sort of toys at a festival is beyond me, but they seemed to have few ladies passing through during the weekend!

The mood inside the actual site was much more chilled out, although the huge site made the site look empty – I’m sure another 40,000 people could easily have fitted in. The 10,000 or so that were there though were certainly out to enjoy it.

We discovered a great tent called “We Love Festivals” and decided to spend much of our first day in there, playing table tennis, DJing from our iPods, drinking cocktails and smoking funny cigarettes.

We realised we needed to find some food as Southampton Favourites Hijera were headlining later that evening so we left our new pals to it, got some food and went back to our tent….however, a hip-hop band in the distance called Southern Suspects caught Toby’s attention and he sped off to catch the rest of their set. At this point, it started to feel like a proper festival Disappointment of the day was that Phil Hartnoll failed to appear – but it didn’t really spoil it that much – Utah Saints, Krafty Kuts and A-Skillz were the perfect reason to get dancing.

Day Three – Saturday

We were feeling pretty tied on the Saturday – it really did seem like hard work getting from one side of the festival to the other, so once we reached the Beach Bar – on the far side of the festival – we decided to stay for a bit. We had good reason to. After Lightspeed Champion on the main stage, local legend Kidda gave us good reason to start knocking back the cocktails, providing the perfect warm-up for another legend, Andy Wetherall. We’d heard that there was a bit of a dance-off to win one of Wetherall’s exclusive fold-up bike (normally reserved for the rich and famous) so I gave it a go. Unfortunately I can’t dance, so didn’t win. It all got me feeling a bit camp though, so when I saw an amazing face paint artist I decided to get a fucking butterfly painted on my face.

In typical Saturday night festival fashion, the evening left us with lots of tough decisions about who to see….The Maccabees, followed by Reverend & The Makers, followed by The Magic Numbers or Freak Power/De La Soul/ Roisin Murphy….I went for a mixture…but unfortunately missed the moment when John Mclure came out into the crowd and performed an acoustic piece for a select few. Never mind. De La Soul were on top form.

All day, I’d been looking forward to LCD Soundsystem finishing the night off…..but exhaustion took over and, as my body doesn’t agree with the amount of chemicals’ that 95% of the Electronic Tent appeared to have taken (unless it was lots of Red Bull) I decided to collapse in my tent. Probably a bad idea as I was kept awake by the slapping sound of my tent neighbours shagging for a couple of hours.

Day Four – Sunday

I thought today was the final day, until I looked further in the program and realised there was still Monday to go yet. However, feeling slightly refreshed for a Sunday (I must have actually had more sleep than I thought) I head out early to catch Gloria Cycles, a highly rated pop/rock band from Brighton. A number of their fans had invented a dance for one of their songs, which impressed me! It was back to the Beach Bar in the day for amazing sets by Wayne Hemingway and Don Letts – two more legends that really swelled the crowd and got everybody (and I mean everybody) dancing. …before dashing over to the cabaret tent (which was one of my highlights of the weekend and I only wish I’d discovered it earlier) for Kunt and The Gang…..I laughed and I cried, but it was tears of laughter)!

Then it was time for Fun Loving Criminals who probably drew the biggest crowd of the weekend. To end the Sunday, it was a choice of Mr Scruff or Terry Hall and I was dragged along to Mr Scruff – who didn’t really impress me much – maybe my mind was on getting home to my comfy bed! And I heard how good Terry Hall was so it was a bit of a disappointing end to the night. Not for Toby though who met some of his idols and loved it to bits.

Day Five – Bank Holiday Monday

The final day was spent taking down the tent, loading up the car and generally milling about waiting for Gorgol Bordello.

I knew that Keith Chegwin was supposed to be doing his Swap Shop thing, but nobody really knew when it was – there was even a rumour going round that he’d already been on on Fiday. So when I saw Keith I had to grab the chance to get him to film mintsouth a little vox-pop (which he was happy to do, the pro that he is). He told me he was on about 5 in the dance tent – but he clashed with one of the biggest acts of the day Jose Gonzalez. So, after watching the highly energetic and enjoyable Imperial Leisure I decided to see Cheggars to his thing. Unfortunately for him, there were less than 30 people there – even though he seemed to have an endless supply of t-shirts, alcohol and other goodies to give away. But, even though there were so few people, my dancing skills let me down again, so I sulked off to catch the end of Jose. He was pretty good, but following him were a band I’d only ever heard of, and not heard. They were called Nouvelle Vague. I fell in love with the singers voice, like I so often do and was in a trance for 35 minutes or so. Then they finished. But Gogol Bordello were on next. Probably the second biggest crowd of the weekend (that I saw) turned up for the gypsy punks and they didn’t fail to impress. But I was still whinging and wanted to get close to the exit so we wouldn’t get stuck in festival traffic – so we went to catch the end of Alabama 3’s acoustic set. I wish I’d stayed for the rest of Gogol really, but never mind.

In all, a very impressive debut from Brachdown with a very (at times too much) chilled out atmosphere. My only whinge was some poor organising at the start of the festival with some very over-zealos, petty security…..as well as the main stage field being as big as the Pyramid field at Glastonbury. That isn’t a bad thing, but with only a fraction of the size of crowd that Glastonbury gets it made the festival appear to be empty. To sum the whole festival up in two words: Spaced Out

Jodie Copeland.