Beautiful Days 2012
Friday 17th to Sunday 19th August 2012Escot Park, near Fairmile, Devon, EX11 1LU, England MAP
£120 for adult weekend tickets - SOLD OUT
Daily capacity: 13,500
Fancy dress day, this year's theme was hearts so there was a whole lot of love going on at BD. I absolutely love BD for the fun and anything-goes factor: go mad, wear a wig, wear a dress, or a mankini (the horror Ed) if you feel like it; everyone is there for the fun. The costumes were amazing, lots of playing cards, Queen Of Hearts, heart surgeons, fab rockabilly dresses, and the weather was so nice a lucky lady got to air her heart nipple tassels.
Our friends set off early to catch The Fabulous Good Time Party Boys who for all ten years have done their themed review show, this year it's 'hearts' with a little help from Mark Chadwick and other guests, including the "Jazz Control" Security Guard doing a great version of Bohemian Rhapsody. We made it to the Bandstand again and sat in the sun to listen to Ellie Williams. Her voice was beautiful and her songs were so personal, about life's ups and downs and finishing with a song about how everything is just blooming marvellous.
The crowd seems to have become a little more mainstream each year and this year there was even a Daily Mail reader (although they may have been a wandering performer), and local bike gangs in their colours! The unwritten rule about the placing of chairs in the main arena from the sound desk back was ignored, with people electing to sit only yards from the front barrier, causing chaos for those trying to dance to their favourite acts. There were also a lot more people who had decided to make this their first festival, including large middle aged groups, and the campervan fields seemed more populated then ever. This made the festival feel slightly less crazy then previous years, but with everyone getting in the spirit it was still as vibrant as ever, with anti-social behaviour kept to a minimum (apart from a fracas in front of the main stage on Saturday), and the roving police having little to do, to the extent that by all accounts they took to cautioning those people who had dumped piles of trash around their tents one morning, threatening to charge them with littering if they didn't clean their campsites up a bit.
As always, the Levellers played an amazing set, including festival favourite 'Beautiful Day', alongside classic track after classic track, with a spattering of songs from their recent album, 'Static on the Airwaves', and Seth Lakeman joined them on stage for a fiddle hoe-down!
The festival closed with the best firework display so far; DMF and the Levellers have really surpassed themselves this year and their 10th festival ended with a bloody big bang.
Goodbye to another Beautiful Days and see you again next year!
review by: Sandra Pitt
photos by: Karen Williams / Andy Pitt
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