One man who has often featured in these pages is Brighton’s own Norman Cook—otherwise known as Fatboy Slim—who has held a number of legendary concerts in the city.
People had the time of their lives. The first of these huge events was Big Beach Boutique, a free concert held on the beach in 2001.
Norman Cook told The Argus hours before the show that he was nervous about crowd safety, but the event passed by largely without any issues, even though the 60,000 people in attendance was much larger than anticipated.
Cook told us before the gig: “The thing is, I don’t know how many people are going to turn up.
“It could be 20,000, or it could be more than 40,000 if the weather is good.
“I don’t want anyone falling in the sea and drowning or getting hurt so I want to give this message to everyone—have a good time, drink as much as you like, but try not to hurt anyone or get hurt.
“If everyone is cool, things will be fine.”
The Argus wrote at the time: “DJ Fatboy Slim’s party on the beach attracted more than a quarter of a million people, four times more than expected, to the seafront.
“Tens of thousands crammed between Brighton’s two piers, jamming roads, bringing the city’s public transport system to meltdown and overwhelming emergency services.
“As the city woke up to a collective hangover on Sunday, and an army of cleaners began clearing more than 100 tonnes of rubbish, a sober post-mortem was being carried out by police and council bosses who accepted the concert had spiralled out of control.
“Cook, who spent £100,000 of his own money to stage the concert, has offered to pay even more to ensure the clean-up is completed by lunchtime today.”
The scale of the event was beyond what was expected as it was predicted that 60,000 fans would turn up.
By noon, ten-mile tailbacks stretched up the A23 towards London.
By 3pm police realised they had a major incident on their hands.
Extra officers were drafted in from all over the county to cope with the gathering crowds.
When Fatboy Slim took to the stage at 9pm, an unbroken sea of faces stretched from the West Pier to the Palace Pier.
The route from Brighton station to the seafront was in human gridlock.
Almost 100 people were treated for crush injuries.
One 40-year-old man died of a heart attack, and Australian nurse Karen Manders, 26, was fatally injured when she fell 25ft from the Kings Road promenade to the seafront below.
“Scores of people had to be plucked from the sea,” The Argus wrote.
“Casualties were ferried out of the crowd by lifeboat, the only escape route.
“The music was switched off for several minutes as security guards coaxed down one man dangling dangerously from the top of a street lamp.
“Norman played a restrained 90-minute set which ended with a blizzard of fake snow swirling down on the crowd.
“Then the chaos really began.”
Hundreds of people still spent the night stranded in the city, many sleeping on the beach.
Despite the enormous scale of the event, police made only six arrests and said the clubbers were “generally in good spirits”.
And the overwhelming memory of the people who were there is that it was an amazing event that they will always remember.
But the authorities realised they couldn’t allow a repeat run of Big Beach Boutique II, so the event stayed away from Brighton for more than four years.
When it returned on New Year’s Day 2007, it had been given a new place in the calendar and a new location—Madeira Drive.
Ticketing was introduced to control crowd numbers, with 20,000 paying ticketholders from the Brighton area.
The scene was very different from previous big events, with revellers having to contend with freezing sleet and torrential rain.
Despite the weather, the event was hailed a success and, probably more importantly, a safe one at that.
Norman’s reward was being told that he didn’t have to host the next one in the winter.
Big Beach Boutique 4 returned a year later with another new slot in the calendar—September 27.
More than 20,000 mainly Brighton residents gathered in Madeira Drive.
“Everyone had their hands in the air, all the way down Madeira Drive as far as I could see.
“It doesn’t get much better than that.”
Big Beach ‘Bootique’ 5 took place over two nights in 2012 when Cook became the first artist to headline the new Amex Stadium in Falmer.
Then, in July 2022, the 20th anniversary of Big Beach Boutique II, Cook headlined On the Beach festival in Brighton.
She wrote: “I’m sure I speak for many Brightonians when I say thank you to Norman Cook.
“Back in 2001, when Fatboy Slim held his first Big Beach Boutique, a moment of pride and passion for music was shared, amplified by being in our beloved home town.
“Then along came the summer of 2002 and our boy held the concert of all concerts.
“It took the UK by storm and we partied, partied and partied some more.
“Good press and bad press followed but we all knew we could never again experience anything like that.
“It was all down to him.
“He stood by his word and so did we—it was the best night of our lives.
“So I’m writing to thank him.”
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