And so after a brief sunny respite at Endorse It last weekend the 2007 tour of assorted muddy fields moves on with a return to The Levellers annual jamboree at Escot Park in Devon. To be fair the conditions weren’t anywhere near as horrendous as they were earlier in the summer at Glastonbury or WOMAD but a lengthy spell of rain on the Saturday made moving about on the sloping paths interesting and more heavy rain on Monday meant the tractor drivers were heavily employed towing bogged down vehicles out of the car parks.

So what’s changed? Well not much really because the set up is already tried & tested & works very well. Getting in was an awful lot easier than was the case last year and I was parked and wrist-banded 5 minutes before the gates were even due to open. There were the same 5 entertainment venues although the Pussy Parlure spiegeltent has been moved to a new position next to the main arena and the Little Big Top dance tent was relocated within in the campsite.

The usual attention to detail was put into decorating the site. As well as a good number of installations that are familiar from other festivals there were a row of fantastic smoking metal trees which lined the top of the main arena field and shot flame into the air in appreciation of the headline acts. Food and merchandise stalls are numerous and varied and the bars served the wonderful Aspalls cider in addition to the usual selection of ales from the Otter brewery. All at reasonable prices too.

Musically I think this is the best line up that Beautiful Days has attracted thus far. I’m still not a massive Levellers fan but it’s their party & what I saw of their performance on Sunday was polished as ever. However the choice of personal favourites Gogol Bordello to headline Saturday was inspired and they put on an awesome high energy show. Friday saw a full Whirl-Y-Gig night with Banco de Gaia in the Little Big Top but although the visuals were wonderful as ever the weak sound levels rather put a dampener on what should have been a superb evening. However, there were plenty of other excellent performances throughout the weekend from old favourites and new faces alike to make up for that slight disappointment.