Brighton and hove Albion certainly have a lot to live up to this coming season, I have never seen 23,000 more joyful faces than those that filled the AMEX stadium last weekend. Fatboy Slim was in his home town and we were loving it! 

My festival day got off to a great start when we wandered down to the pier, change in hand, in search of a local bus only to be greeted by a jovial fella decked in hi-vis who swiftly directed us to the FREE shuttle! It's the little things, thirty quid a ticket and they put on a free shuttle? Very nice touch. 

On arrival the friends who I was with had to head off to a spesh entrance, leaving me to go in on my own. Sometimes crowds can be quite intimidating for a girl who still has her name embroidered on her shoes but not here! Doorly was in full swing and the whole crowd were just bopping around, really enjoying themselves. There was no attitude or people of suspect sobriety, just fun :) 

The facilities were standard football fare, poor lager selection (but I am a snob) and burgers. Outside the ground there was more on offer and I enjoyed a delicious meat feast pizza. But let's be honest here, this was a festival focussed on the music over the whole package. By the time Jaguar Skills came on I wouldn't have cared if all that was on was sawdust. I was not moving from that dance floor! 

Jaguar Skills was on great form, he got the tone just right with a mixture of singalong and heavy beats. The continuing teaser of the house of pain intro had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand and when he eventually played it even the guy near us on crutches was leaping about!! 

DJ Fresh was also a massive crowed pleaser. The lunge was definitely the move of choice for his set of his own stuff and a great selection of others,  I even think he pulled out some Madness at one point, queue more great dance moves from the group, baggy trousers style! 

It may have been the beers but I'm pretty sure among the days music there was some nintendo theme tunes played in a drum and bass styley. Grimy super Mario? Inspired! And I think nearly every act played a bit of the prodigy, the kids still love em! 

With Annie Mac came the more serious dance tunes backed by some psychedelic images of her famed barnet. The benefit of being in a football stadium was that the sound was great, compared to a windy beach, and also that the acts could use visual and special effects to enhance their set. Fatboy slim used this to really steal the show. 

At the end of Annies set the rain came down and the beer queue was getting a little aggressive as rumours spread about a shortage. We settled ourselves up in the stands awaiting the Fatboy. With a great view and enough space for a wiggle around, we thought we would be content there for the duration.  One look at that hawian shirt though and we donned our ponchos and sprinted forward, crazed, like my mum at a cliff Richard concert! 

Mr slim was on fantastic form. He opened with praise you, a personal favourite and he was clearly loving it, as animated on stage as ever. Other Highlights include a rework of LMFAOs song to "I'm in the AMEX *****" I was still singing this at work on Wednesday, and the awesome laser show. I felt like I was in a super club as the words "has anyone seen Fatboy" echoed around the stadium. I geniunely had such an awesome time, and I got the feeling the rest of the crowd did too. 

God bless this acid house indeed!

Written Review by Sarah Sturgeon

Video MissGreenybean