Fatboy Slim — Live @ Big Beach Boutique

Recently, Fatboy Slim posted a recording of a grandiose DJ set Big Beach Boutique II in excellent quality. Grandiose is the right word. The organisers expected a maximum of 40,000 people coming to the free performance of three DJs (in addition to Fatboy, there was the cardinal of progressive house John Digweed and the founder of the big beat label Skint Midfield General). But no one expected 250,000 people gathering on the coast, which is about the whole population of Brighton itself! A quarter of a million watched how a single person on stage changed records swiftly :-)

There were miles-long traffic jams at the entrance to the city. Alcohol was sold out. Restrooms were packed. People listened to music on the sand, in the waters of the English Channel, sitting on street lights, standing in public toilet booths, as well as from nearby balconies and parapets. And where was it? In the city where only six or seven years ago Big Beat was only played at small parties in small clubs. But in 1996 Fatboy was only a local celebrity, and now, in 2002, he was stirring up a huge crowd that came from all over the country to his hometown to hail him for his work. “It was like Woodstock,” Fatboy summed up.