Beautiful Days is a benchmark event on the UK’s festival calendar, and rightly so. Edition 13 was yet another classic weekend of fine music, great entertainment, and chilled times. Forget the weather – this festival is simply too good to define in terms of electric storms and downpours. The fact that the site is huge, with more discrete scenes and happenings than you can shake a stick at, all helps of course. There are six performance areas at BD with music, theatre, circuses, and stand-up in the mix – plus a large dedicated kids area. But that’s not the half of it. Some hardly left the camp site, some the bars, some the grassy slopes around the Bimble Inn … so long as you were THERE. That’s what mattered. Simply to be part of the scene was enough. There are so many different areas, many undercover, that to just relax and be at Beautiful Days is heaven for most. There is a vibe; an atmosphere, that permeates every atom of Beautiful Days. Our Festivals For All reviewers loved last year's bash (read the Beautiful Days 2014 Review) and 2015 just confirmed that BD is one of the best mid-sized festivals around.

This is a big undulating site at Escot Park and they pack it with goodies. Expect all the usual festie malarkey – performance artists, AV installations, site art and sculpture et al; but rather like the facilities – everything is spot-on quality wise at Beautiful Days. There was something for everyone – whatever your peccadillos or age. The bars were heaving – yet, a rarity these days, you could take yer own booze into the arena. In between the downpours you could just people watch for hours – it’s that kind of festival.

The Levellers start and end proceedings but this is no LevellerFest. Beautiful Days is their own festie but this is no band branded theme park. Their ethos and high quality standards DO impact to the very heart of this festival but the music is as diverse as the punters in the fields. A Curious Life – a documentary about the band was shown over the weekend, which pretty much encapsulates what this band are all about (read the FFA Review of A Curious Life).

FFA loved it – even if you did needed your own Luge to get down the slippery slope to the Bimble on Sunday. There were 100’s of artists and events over the weekend – here are just a few snapshots of some of the key moments for FFA, or at least what we can remember! If you were lucky enough to attend then you will have your own opinions. This is ours…

Friday’s main stage proceedings kicked off with the haunting, yet at times raucous melodies and pretty much unique vocal style of the excellent Kim Churchill. A fine act to kick start the festival for FFA.

Rory McLeod, what can we say; an artist whose fine tunes are only part of the performance. McLeod takes the time to put his musical musings into context with some highly entertaining banter between numbers. Funny and thoughtful and a wonderful singer-songwriter. A great introduction to The Big Top stage.

Two splendid bands vied for FFA’s attentions later in the day when Peatbog Faeries went head-to-head with The Dhol Foundation. We decided to cover half a set apiece – but so good were the respective shows that the changeover never happened! Mrs FFA disappeared into the drizzle to catch the Dhol’s – never to return. Sporting a full band and a couple of full-on Bhangra dancers, they had the Friday early evening crowd bouncing in the rain. A wonderful set culminating in the excellent, if meteorologically incorrect, ‘After The Rain’, the guys put down a marker as an early set of the day – if not the festival.

The Peatbogs were, well, the Peatbogs – an excellent mixture of Celtic house, ceilidh, and Psy beats once again delivered with aplomb. Even after all these years, ‘Dust’ and the hardy perennial ‘Folk Police’ continue to hit the spot. Great set.

The House of Pain were spot-on. A strange and hypnotic mix of hip hop and country blues, they got a great crowd reaction with the arena a sea of gyrating bodies for what had to be the set closure ‘Jump Around’.

Professional Mancs, The Happy Mondays, delivered a nostalgia trip on the back of the 25^th anniversary of their ‘Pills…’ album before we hot footed over to the event of the day, for this reviewer at least, – Rev Hammer’s Freeborn John Live. A tale of one man’s fight for freedom and justice, the original concept album celebrated its 20^th anniversary and 10^th anniversary of its first live outing (at BD no less) this year. Featuring an ‘all-star’ cast including Mr Hammer, the aforementioned Rory McLeod, the wonderful Maddy Proir, plus various Levellers, Lakeman’s, and New Model Armies, this evening was something very special indeed. Marvellous music and lyrics delivered by a first class cast carry a timeless narrative to perfection – the rapturous ovation at the end of the performance was more than justified. Excellent.

YouTube Video by Haydn Wheeler

Saturation Saturday witnessed some excellent growling blues from One Bloke, One Mandolin. There is a passion and intensity to Stevie’s music that explores the deepest depths and nuances of any material he cares to play. A fine set as the storm kicked in. After some splendid urban reggae ska from The Skints we took in a wonderful set from Eddi Reader. The woman is a kindred performer to Rory McLeod – with each song nicely positioned into the context of the singer’s experiences by storytelling and amusing banter. A great hour well spent.

Rich Hall’s Hoedown was a revelation. OK, OK, so we were only really sheltering from the rain; but by such chance veritable discoveries are made. One of the few US comics to actually ‘get’ the British psyche, Hall’s world view was both hilarious and uncomfortably incisive. Musically the hoedown band were remarkably good with Hall a more than competent country blues guitar player. Both the banter and also the song lyrics (example ‘It’s a fucked up world – when you have to cross the English Channel – clinging to an axle’) had the audience swinging wildly between mirth and discomfort – as all the great comics should do. He nailed it.

What a superb set from Dropkick Murphys in what the Met Office would officially classify as a ‘Bleedin Deluge’. The band were immense, strutting the stage with a dynamic presence and energy that belied the conditions. They have the punk folk-rock genre all sewn up without much of the over-sentimentality that sometimes plagues US ‘Irish’ bands. Fine musicians and an excellent stage show.

Wilko Johnson ripped up The Big Top with a wonderful crowd to listen and dance to one of the R&B masters. It’s taken as read the Wilko will deliver – but don’t forget you get TWO world class performers here; bassist Norman Watt-Roy was, once again, outstanding. Always a pleasure and an honour to watch these guys. Wonderful.

One of the many assets of BD is the wealth of disparate scenes around the site – it’s virtually a collection of small festivals wrapped nicely into one. The Bandstand lives within its own little universe and what better parallel world to witness The Membranes on a Sunday afternoon. One of John Robb’s many alter-ego’s, the band generated their own micro-mosh pit on stage. Throw into the mix that the band were playing with borrowed kit with the power of the average bedroom practice amp and this was, well, the true spirit of punk. I was back at the Electric Circus. Great stuff.

Some bands are THE festival bands – always great value live and virtually guaranteed to perform - and most were playing at BD; Levellers (of course!),Wilko, The Beat – with their typically entertaining main stage set, and Oysterband who found an enthusiastic Big Top crowd in fine voice. A band unafraid to wear their politics on their sleeve – ‘Here Comes The Flood’ in particular found both band and audience in unison, but it was ‘Everywhere I Go’ that really hit the mark. Spine tingling stuff with musicians and crowd as one. A wonderful vibe.

If crowd reaction determines set of the festival then Gogol Bordello stole the whole shebang. This was an absolutely manic full-throttle performance. What a band. For stage dynamics and energy levels they simply blew the other contenders of the weekend off the stage. Don’t get me wrong – unlike some, this is no style over substance. This crew are a bunch of fine musicians. As a relatively seasoned reviewer I have rarely witnessed a whole arena bounce as wildly as when the band sparked up ‘Start Wearing Purple’. A brilliant set.

… and so to the Levellers. They went hi-tech this year with flame jets and Confetti Canons to produce a stunning set. Pretty much a greatest hits collection and why not. This was the band at their best, with an almost psychedelic edge to tracks like ‘Too Real’. Strangely the audience appeared somewhat muted with Chadwick even gently chiding at one point for the lack of singing and reaction. Maybe it was burnout from the Gogol’s, or more likely the changing demographic of the BD attendees. Now the Levellers have never been precious; Beautiful Days was never simply a Levellers Love-In but maybe the audience has become more generalist in the last couple of years - it’s certainly younger. It could just be that to a growing number in the audience the Levs are just another band. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Pulling in a more disparate and diverse audience each sell-out year could help maintain the vibrancy and edginess that BD has in spades. (Discuss).

Sooo… There you go. Beautiful Days is a splendid festival. Nuff said.

Article by Barrie Dimond