Beat-Herder Festival, Ribble Valley, UK

Atop a gentle protuberance in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley the chosen place for herding beats can be found. This place known as the Beatherder festival has in recent years, along with neighbouring Beacons festival, been making good headway with strong line-ups (beat herding), retrospective favourites include Simian Mobile Disco, James Holden and Nathan Fake. This year’s line-up unfortunately wasn’t quite asgood at representing underground electronic music as previous years, but presented some popular big-hitters (Chic, Groove Armada) and the masses of variety across the roster set the scene for a rip-roarious occasion.

The first thing that strikes you upon entering the festival is the setting; the campsite overlooks a picturesque valley with large rolling hills visible way off into the distance. Beatherder is easily one of the most beautiful festival spots in the UK, and the views are the perfect backdrop for any post-nocturnal groove self-pitying (Ow! My head, but phwoar look at those hilly regions!).

Along with some of the best views UK festivallers will experience, Beatherder has managed to maintain a wonderfully friendly/generous clientele, in turn creating a pretty special atmosphere. The main catalyst for this atmosphere is the excellently crafted stage set-ups and themed areas; there’s the ominous presence of the Fortress, a far eastern themed castle construction posing as an open-top discothèque; the charming Maison d’Etre stage, a cosy bungalow style tent hosting a range of bands; and of course the Street, a wild west themed row of shops containing a church (for dancing) and tattoo parlour. Also the Toiltrees stage is situated within the small woodland area at the heart of the festival, and it really is an exceptional location for late night boogying, getting into your groove amongst the lights and the trees is for want of a slicker phrase, fucking cool.

As for the music, Chic kicked off with a crowd-pleasing set galvanising the energy of the audience and setting the festival mood to pretty damn good, playing an impressive selection of hits from their formidable back catalogue (Good times, Le Freak, Everybody Dance, Let’s Dance). Booka Shade picked up the ball where Chic left off witha very muscular performance and the energy Walter Merziger has for his own beats is surprisingly motivating despite the darkness of their metallic overtones (Mandarine Girl), “Yeah! I can totally dig this. If a man likes his own music that much, it must be good!”. However if one fault has to be found we can comment on with what appeared to be a minor wardrobe mishap with both members of Booka Shade bouncing around on stage for the entire set wearing identical black low-cut v-neck t-shirts. Band uniforms? We think not! Eagle eyed DT writers are the bane of all fashion-slacking festival performers’ existence but the fact that this tongue in check aside is our biggest criticism shows you the strength of the set involved.

Groove Armada followed, continuing the flow of nicely made danceable tunes (Superstylin’, Pump up the Jam) and over at the Toiltrees stage Utah Saints put on a classic mix of electronic music new and old, turning the woodland setting into the absolute place to be.

Next up for music fans was the ninja costume adorned Jaguar Skills. Jaguar Skills is known for and always will play the crowd-pleasers, but it would have been interesting to see him unleash his formidable knowledge of old school hip hop to craft a set that would live longer in the memory. His dexterity on the decks is undoubted but we’d rather he’d been more adventurous in his track selection. This said the rest of the crowd loved it and we’re sure will be telling every Tom, Dick and Harry they meet at martial arts ceremonies in generations to come.

On the Saturday, Buraka Som Sistema owned the main stage with some impressive Kuduro beats (Hangover (BaBaBa)), and in the Toiltrees Stanton Warriors and Kissy Sellout both played eclectic mixes worthy of the excellent setting. On Sunday Mr Scruff & MC Kwasi played a marathon 4 hour set throughout the evening, with plenty of nice tunes to chill out to on a sleepy final day. Jimmy Cliff continued the chilled out vibe with his finely tuned reggae awesomeness (Wonderful World, Beautiful People, Many Rivers to cross), perfect for the hazy dusk. Gentleman’s Dub Club closed out the festival much to the crowds delight, ending a superb small festival full of charm and wholeheartedness. Same time next year?

Photograph by James Abott Donnelly