Another weekend – another mudbath, but unlike last weekend’s Sunrise Celebration this was a much more enjoyable affair. I’ve eulogised long and hard in the past about how Beat-Herder goes through a wonderful process of evolution each year and this year was no exception with a new Parish Church to add to the growing list of fantastic quirky venues and also a ferris wheel so punters could enjoy a birds eye view of the site.

Heavy rain the day before the festival and thundery showers throughout made it slippery & difficult getting through the main thoroughfares and we also had to wait several hours to be towed out on the Monday. But the site is compact enough for this not to be a major inconvenience and the main stage area held up remarkably well, as did most of the indoor venues which generally benefitted from matted flooring.

Headliners Orbital put on an imperious performance on the Saturday night, ably supported by dance/rock crossover starlets The Whip. On the Friday we were treated to Death In Vegas who I’ve not seen since Glastonbury 2000. Mr Scruff did his usual mammoth Sunday session in the Toiltrees and The Beat and Lee Scratch Perry had us dancing into the night.

I had 3 moans last year and I’m delighted to say that all were fully addressed this year. The haphazard car park queuing system was ditched, the litter situation in the arena was infinitely better & the main stage toilets were repositioned to the bottom of the hill and emptied regularly to prevent the overflows of previous years. However my major gripe from 2010 returned with everybody being subjected to intrusive searches every time they entered the arena. The resulting queues meant that people waited for more than an hour at peak times and missed headline performances as a result. This really needs to be sorted out by the organisers!

There was the usual excellent selection of food stalls. A couple of favourites from previous years have disappeared to be replaced by equally enjoyable fare and the new Thai food kitchen in the Perfumed Garden proved fantastic value at £5 for a whopping portion of chicken curry. As usual there were 2 quaffable ales from the Bowland Brewery plus the festival cider. Prices were up at £3:50 a pint but in fairness that’s the least you will pay at most festivals these days. The fancy dress theme had moved on to the letter “A” and there were Arabs, Air Hostesses, Astronauts and Aardvarks galore! All in all another memorable weekend in Beatherdershire.