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.
