Benicassim Saturday Review 2011

Fiberfib.com stage was the first port for us to catch Bombay Bicycle Club. I’m a massive fan of the North London for piece having seen them many times before I was happy to see them perform an electric-set as opposed to the acoustic which they adopted from their sounds of 2010 album ‘Flaws’. ‘Cancel on Me’, ‘Dust on the Ground’ and ‘Always Like This’ were pretty special and allowed me to forget about my nose for a while! Great tracks, and Jack Steadman and Co were on top form. Unfortunately we missed the end of the set, as they clashed with Mumford and Sons who were on the Main Stage half an hour in to BBC’s set.
Around the campsite, the majority of people all said the same thing, Mumford and Sons was the act they were looking most forward to too. Not even headlining, after their ten song long set I;m sure it won’t be long until their folk/indie sounds are headling a major festival. Returning to Beni from 2010, the crowd went wild for them. They sampled quite a few new songs, which the crowd seemed to lap up. ‘Lover of Light’ and ‘Lover’s Eyes’ will definitely be ones to look out for in the future. My favourite track ‘Little Lion Man’ was echoed back by nearly all of the 1000’s of people in the crowd. But it has to be said their encore of ‘The Cave’ is the one greeted with the most rapoturous of sounds. Pretty awesome! Although I have no idea why they didn’t play ‘Winter Winds’ disappointing!!!

I wasn’t going anywhere as up next was THE ARCTIC MONKEYS! The Sheffield four-piece could easily be mistaken for being around forever. Emphasised by their hit-packed 2hour long, 20 song set! The majority of their gig was based around new album ‘Suck it and See’ which was in truth slightly disappointing. Besides ‘Don’t sit down because I’ve moved the chair’ it seemed as though the majority of the crowd was unfamiliar with other tracks and didn’t respond that well. However, any feelings of disappointment were short lived. With the Monkeys instantly turning the crowd in to a frenzy by dropping hits such as ‘Crying Lightning’, ‘I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ and ‘When The Sun Goes Down’. It also has to be said their encore of ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ and ‘505’ was electric, literally insane, so GOOOOD!
Primal Scream were up next presenting Screamadelica… unfortunately due to my nose and lack of sleep I had to be a melt and head back to zee tent to catch some vital Z’zzzzzzzzzzz’s.

If you’re reading this I’m guessing you know what Benicassim is, if you don’t then let me give you some insight…
Imagine Glastonbury… Right now minus the bad weather, wellingtons, and rain macs. Then quickly add Sun, Shades, and Shorts!!! But at the same time make sure you keep the amazing sounds of world class music and chilled out vibes then bang! We have BENICASSIM!
I was lucky enough to have a ticket for this years event and despite breaking both my Blackberry and my nose (more of that later) I can safely say I had the best 8days of my life (don’t call the exaggeration police just yet… and read on for my full guide to Beni 2011).
After doing Glasto last year but missing out on a ‘proper’ holiday (poor student) I was in a dilemma this year as to what to chose! My first four days in Beni justified my decision ten-fold!

Prior to the music we had four days to chillout…. The days consisted of a short, okay brisk walk from the campsite to the beach, but it is loverly! A day sunning it, accompanied by an icecream some fresh mojitos made by some crazy bloke who definitely made a killing! Then to one of the numerous nice little restaurants for a few beers and a spot of paella! Beautiful! There is loads of bars scattered around, a decent and a surprisingly cheap club! I was in love with Beni and the festival hadn’t even kicked off yet.

Benicassim Festival Thursday Review

After let the sunset and squeezing in some pre-drinking at the tent, we made our way down for our first act of the festival! We headed to the ‘Maravillas Stage’ (Beni’s main stage) at 10.15 to catch Scottish singer/song-writer Paolo Nutini! Playing to the majority of 2009’s ‘Sunny Side Up’ including hits Candy, Coming Up Easy and Pencil Full of lead his set was well received by the huge crowd! Throwing in previous hits such as ‘Jenny Don’t Be Hasty’ and ‘New Shoes’ the half Italian Rocker, delivered, and set truly signalled the start of Beni!
After this quite a few people moved around, but we didn’t go anywhere, getting to the front in anticipation of – Plan B…What a talent this guy is! He has come a long way since introducing himself to the music world as a grime artist! He is now easily one of the best Male Solo Acts in the UK. Opening with ‘Writings on the Wall’ finishing with ‘Stay to Long’ all his hits were welcomed with raptures of screams and moshing as encouraged and displayed by the man himself what a nutter! In between he also played hits like ‘Love Goes Down’ and ‘Praying’ and a fantastic medley of some Ben E.King, Seal and Dr Dre……. I must also mention Faith SFX who warmed up the crowd before Plan B with a Beatboxer… He was immense! Check him out on Youtube fast, he’s unreal!

We then faced a huge dilemma, stay around for The Streets which would obviously be amazing, and with Mike Skinner’s pending retirement questionably un-misable! Or head other to Fiberfib.com Stage and catch Chase and Status!? Hmmmm having seen the later a short while ago at The Isle of Wight Festival I knew I had to be there again! The South London dubstep guru’s are an amazing live act!
They didn’t disappoint either… the crowd literally turned into a warzone But in a good way (I’m not advocating war here just moshing)! The energy of the crowd was literally electric, and I haven’t sweated that much since well, since the last time I was very, sweaty! ‘Let you go’ and ‘time’ were legendary, with Deliah joining the boys on stage for the latter! Each song was blasted out with massive energy, you knew at every drop of the base the crowd was going to erupt! It was literally AWESOME! An two song encore of Blind Faith and old favourite Fool Yourself was immense! No idols is a hit-packed album and I cannot wait to see these guys again!

Emotionally and Physically drained we decided to hack it out at the stage to see Jack Beats close from 2.30 to 4am. Great decision! This new young DJ who I was unfamiliar with before, smashed out loads of remixes and different hits and kept the majority of Beni partying to the am! DECENT!

Benicassim 2011 Friday Review

9.30pm was our first port of call to catch Killers front man ‘Brandon Flowers’. ‘Only the Young’ and ‘Crossfire’ were received exceptionally well, portraying the success of his debut album ‘Flamingo’, but the crowd went wild when he delivered back some of his hits with The Killers! ‘Read my Mind’ and ‘Losing Touch’ were pretty special! But ‘Mr Brightside’ was literally awesome!

After their triumphant performance at Glasto, the band that seems they’ve been around forever ‘Elbow’ were up next! Not being a massive fan, I was unsure what to expect! In honesty, I was quite disappointed, the sound wasn’t great and songs kept getting interrupted. This was largely due to the sheer size of the crowd. Singer Guy Garvey kept encouraging the crowd ‘To look after one another’ which was good of him! Shame he didn’t have a few more hits to accompany ‘Build a Rocket Boys’ and ‘One Day Like This’ which were massive crowd pleasers!

Following Elbow, was the band that I was most looking forward to seeing all week! New York Indie heroes ‘The Strokes’. Back of their new hit album ‘Angles’ Julian Casablanca and co delivered a High Octane hit packed set. Opening with ‘This is it’s classic ‘New York City Cops’ they set the tone. And continued to tip in and out of their catalogue of huge hits. Higlights included ‘Repitilla’, ‘Last Nite’, ‘Undercover of Darkness’ and ‘Someday’. Highlights did not include breaking my nose to the encore of ‘Juicebox’.

Yep during a mosh I caught a massively stray elbow on my nose, and had to be rushed to a medical tent! Stitches and a re-brake followed and the Benicassim Doctors had my good as new. I say good as new, I did look a bit like a poor-mans Steve Bruce!

Devastatingly this meant I missed St Alban’s Dance/pop trio Friendly Fires. I could hear them, and heard all their huge hits from their self-titled debut album and new smash hit ‘Pala’. But it wasn’t the same. My mate, kindly rubbed it in, in the morning saying they were unreal. I would have loved to have been there for ‘Jump in the Pool’, ‘Skeleton Boy’ and new single ‘Live those days tonight’. By all rights, they were amazing!