DJ Fatboy Slim has launched an appeal to find the Hawaiian shirt he wore at the Big Beach Boutique concert 20 years ago.
Norman Cook, who lives in Hove, took to social media on Sunday night in hope of finding the owner of the shirt he wore at the gig on Brighton beach on July 13, 2002.
Fatboy, 58, wrote: “Have you seen this shirt? We are trying to track down the current owner of this iconic Hawaiian shirt for a Big Beach Boutique 20th anniversary exhibition.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHIRT…?
— Fatboy Slim (@FatboySlim) March 20, 2022
We are trying to track down the current owner of this iconic Hawaiian shirt for a Big Beach Boutique 20th anniversary exhibition.
If I gave you this shirt or you won it in a raffle all those years ago can I possibly borrow it back? pic.twitter.com/0aVoaX5743
“If I gave you this shirt, or you won it in a raffle all those years ago, can I possibly borrow it back?”
To mark the anniversary, he also appealed to fans willing to share their stories from the day, and teased that “something special” was in the pipeline.
More than 250,000 concert goers gathered on Brighton Beach on July 13, 2002, in what was described as the “biggest event Sussex has ever seen.”
The crowd was more than four times the expected size and at the time, doubled Brighton’s population.
A year earlier, about 40,000 people attended the first of the Big Beach Boutique events.
But in 2002, Fatboy performed the second of his free open-air concerts on Brighton beach in front of a record-breaking crowd.
While the event went down in Brighton music history, it wasn’t without incident.
As Fatboy Slim performed on stage, party goers on the beach had to be rescued from the sea.
A total of 160 people suffered minor injuries, while 11 people were taken to hospital. Six people were arrested.
A woman also died after falling from the Upper Esplanade, while a man also died of a heart attack shortly after the concert.
At the time, Fatboy said: “I felt very stressed because at one point I thought my nightmare scenario, that I might be responsible for someone being hurt or killed, was coming true. I was really rattled.”
The event was a huge success despite some media outlets reporting the “chaos” created by the original event.
It has been held another four times since the first beach party in 2001, with the last being held at the Amex.
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