- The Junk Club is the best known house and techno venue in Southampton. Since 2005, it's built a strong presence on the UK's south coast, establishing itself as a prominent club brand. Its offshoot, Junk Department, has retained the spirit of the venue and transported it around the UK and Europe. This year they held their first festival, a one-day event called Big Top, which took place in their hometown at Stoneham Park.
Stoneham Park is 90 minutes from London by train and less than ten minutes from Southampton. It's a picturesque part of the South, with plenty of green land providing ample room for Junk Department's ambitious project. On the festival site was, as expected, a large tent with room for around 2-3,000 people. Next to that were a couple of fairground rides, a smaller tent, a small food area and plenty of empty space for revellers to chill out and enjoy the music coming from the main stage.
Laura Jones put in a solid performance after Lars Vegas (of Detroit Swindle) had pumped up the crowd inside the tent. Her two-hour set was strong but not overpowering, with consistently impressive selections throughout. Dyed Soundorom followed with a typically groovy performance, blending contemporary cuts with classics. His edit of Tuccillo's "City Lights" was one of several highlights. From there, Maya Jane Coles pushed the energy levels higher. She threaded together a selection that went from rugged beats and basslines to more sublime technoid numbers. Last up was Jamie Jones, who took things up another notch and closed the night perfectly.
Overall, not a bad first effort. Logistically there were some issues: one major complaint from both the crowd and the DJs was that the sound was not quite as good as it should have been for such a large space. (Word around the site was that a neighbour had complained and the volume had been kept down.) Also, midway through the day it became clear that the festival had run out of beer, though a re-up arrived within an hour or so. Overall though, the crowd appeared satisfied and the music was faultless. With a five-year plan to develop the one-dayer into something far larger, let's hope the lessons learned from Big Top 1.0 will be applied to forthcoming events.