Before Benicassim 2010 we asked our benicassim readers to write reviews of the event, the first review we have received is from David Whittaker.

So Benicassim, this was my very first festival, as music Photographer I never hang around at festivals and thought it’d be a good opportunity to get some sun and enjoy a festival for the first time.

We flew in Reus which is a good hour and a half transfer to Beni, we took the EUfest.com bus which was £20 each way, it set off and hour late but coming back was bang on time which we were thankful for in all honesty.

There isn’t much at Reus Airport so if you’re thinking of getting duty free stuff you’re limited to a small number of fags,booze and perfume not much else really.

We stayed for a week, Tuesday to Tuesday… The walk from where the Eufest bus dropped us off to Benicamp was absolute MURDER at 3pm in 35 degree heat and on reflection would def have got a taxi as Benicamp is up quite a steep hill when you’re lugging stuff around.

I can’t really speak about Campfib as we never ventured over there but Benicamp was absolutely rammed on the Tuesday when we got there, we literally got the last two pitches for our relatively small tents, it’s probably a good idea to get there on the Sunday or the Monday if you want to get the pick of the site, although people were still arriving on thursday hopeful of a pitch.

Benicamp has a decent shower block, with 2 annex shower blocks in Portakbin style one located just outside the main block and one in a far corner which was always quiet so if you can get your arse down there for queue free showerage. The showers tend to be ice cold so be prepared for grinding your teeth on fresh sunburn, it soon brings you round from a stinking hang over though. All showers and toilets are cleaned reguarly which is def something you’ll appreciate on other festival toilets.

There’s also a bar which serves pizzas and other snacks, plug point to charge your phone or for the girly wirlies – Straightening your bloody hair and doing your bloody make up and generally making the place look untidy haha… some people who couldn’t get a pitch ended up sleeping on the bar floor randomly? I noticed a football pitch and Tennis court too i think?? Or maybe i was a little worse for wear?

Sleeping is something you won’t do, I reckon in the week i spent there the best sleep i had was waiting for the check in desk to open on the way home in the airport, it was the best 45 mins kip ever!!! It just never seems to cool down. Also if you do decide to eat at the camp try not to leave food on the floor otherwise you’ll soon be infested with man eating ants, and you really don’t want that. Lidl is a short walk down from Benicamp but they NEVER put water in the fridge annoyingly so we hid some bottles in a freezer under some peas or something and retrieved it each day before we went to the beach – You should’ve seen the envious faces mooohahaha… There’s a supermarket over the road from Lidl which we went to on the last day and i’d say is probably better than lidl but more expensive, a litre of vodka at Lidl was 4 euro’s :0)

The bus service that runs throughout the festival is BRILLIANT, and saved our legs on a number of occasions i would def get a bus card from the Fib guys when you go get your wristband exchanged at the festival entrance (which you have to do before the festival).

Thanks to the bus route we made it to the Aqua Park and Button;

Aqua Park – 20 Euro’s and is a wicked day out, great pools and slides and never really seemed to get too busy.

Button – 7 Euro’s entry to a grotty pool with grass and no sun loungers, but you get a free beer and a burger for that (WOOoooo). Whilst we were here a grass snake was seen slithering down the wall which was hilarious as some daft bird screamed in a scouse accent ‘dats fuchin disgustin da is’ – Made me proud to be British *sigh*. I wouldn’t really recommend this place to be honest when you can get yourself down the beach and spend 5 Euros on a Sun Lounger and snooze the day away.

Benicassim itself it a bit of a non event, the only place i’d recommend is the Corona Bar which was great fun 2 euros a bottle ice cold – Life saver! You can walk for about 2 miles along the sea front and see probably 3 bars (which you wouldn’t want to go in), the majority were houses and flats it really doesn’t seem that tourism is part Beni, i think as more Brits invade the event it’ll come round, but a good bar on the beach would make a killing, anyway i digress…

So you’re on the bus and you get dropped at the festival entrance or at least you think you do, you’ve got another maybe 500/750metre walk to the actual entrance which after the 3rd night becomes harder and harder (I was in a world of pain with blisters after all the walking it’s not a fashion show look after your feet!!!), there’s a large area where you have to finish any booze you’ve brought with you then you get searched and go through. The search is hardly a ‘search’ to be honest nevertheless you’re in…

There’s plenty of bars inside so you won’t have to queue, there’s a ticket system for booze which has been mentioned before i’d stick to the small beers as the large beers get warm pretty quick the measures of vodka etc are quite generous so it makes paying £7 a drink a little more bearable. The food is great loads of stands so you’ll never be short of choice, i can recommend the Argentinian grill, a steak sarnie with mint sauce – Gorgeous, ruddy should be for the price like.

The music was great although Gorillaz in my opinion just doesn’t work live so for them to headline the final night was a bit of a let down especially after Dizzee Rascal (whom i despise) who absolutely blew everyone away he was superb. My acts of the festival were;

Two Door Cinema Club
Mumford and Sons – I hate this lot but they were great
Calvin Harris
Kasabian
Klaxons
Ellie Goulding (Played main stage after Lilly Allen cancelled for the second year running)
He’s a Rascal – Dizzee Rascal
The Cribs

So that’s about it, in summary if i were doing the festival again i wouldn’t camp, going into the fourth night i was knackered and couldn’t enjoy it as much as i probably would’ve having had a decent nights sleep, if you are going to camp make sure you get there early and take a fan because there’s a 2 hour window for sleep between 5-7 then it’s HOT HOT HOT again.

PS Don’t forget the silent disco, was a right laugh and there was a chill out area outside for those who ‘could do with a coffee’ hahaha

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The Benicassim Festival 2010 is in full swing. Thursday Night saw the awesome Kasabian headline the main stage, and the rocked it in front of 30,000 festival lovers. Kasabian played a best of set including their huge hits ‘Shoot The Runner’, ‘Fire’ and ‘Club Foot’. Lead singer Tom Meighan, wore a blue jacket and really cool dark circular sunglasses. Ray Davies played before Kasabian, the ex Kinks lead man plated hits like ‘Tired Of Waiting For You’, ‘Sunny Afternoon’ .
Other hightlights from day 1 of Benicassim 2010 were the delightful The Temper Trap who got the Fiberfib.com crowd going with their seminal fave ‘Sweet Disposition’
So now we would like your benicassim reviews and pictures. Add your reviews by adding a comment below, and add your pics to our Benicassim Flickr Page

Me and my friend Mark drive from the sleepy town of Calpe to –what we think- is yet another sleepy town. We see loads of young festival goers wearing their floral prints and aviators walking up and down the main street, looking totally at ease with what they’re doing and where they’re going. We’re just driving round with my parents looking for the festival itself. This was our first festival, and we’d been counting down the days since we’d got the tickets. So anyway, we find the road signs and drive up to camp FIB, our home for the next five days. The sun was covered by clouds, a real god send when you’re trying to set up a tent. So anyway, tip one – get to the camp sites in good time, when we arrived on Wednesday, the organisers tried to place me and mark at the back of the site, on rocks. We had other ideas! We separated from the group and pitched our tent on this little grass ledge, next to the shaded area. Although not ideal, I do wish that we’d gotten under some shade, because believe me, waking up in sauna for a tent when you’re horribly hungover is a bit hot. Tip two-when pitching your tent, get under shade. Our neighbours where two lads, Tom and Tom from Leeds, who couldn’t have been nicer.
So…fast forward to the night time. It’s about 10 o clock, me and mark bought ourselves 24 small Amstell cans, it’s still hot, we’ve had hardly anything to eat, but we’ve managed to consume about 75% of these cans, with help from neighbours. Me, being a horrible lightweight end up being horribly sick. NOT GOOD. Tip three- drink to what your body can handle. I literally had about 5 cans, but because of the lack of water and food, it really got to me.

I think the only bad time in the festival was on the night when Gnarls Barkly and The Raconteurs played. There i was dancing away, then BANG! I experienced the worst pain of my life. My stomach was killing, not like anything I’d felt before. I did the clever thing of diagnosing myself with appendicitis. I had all the symptoms. However, when I went to sleep and drunk lots of water, in the morning it was gone. I should mention that i was saved by my knight in shining armour. The pain, I later found out, was due to overindulgence (obviously), lack of water and food, and exhaustion. The last one, I couldn’t get. See, I got about 2 hours sleep a night. It was too hot to sleep in the day-Mark did it somehow- and got covered in shaving foam. Ah pranks. Anyway. The only time to get sleep was in the night, it was cool enough, but when you woke up, it was so hot. So in Beni 09, I know I’ll be drinking more water and eating more. However, sleep is out the question. I don’t want to miss one waking moment of this festival.

Ok so…key things to remember- basically the rest of my numbered tips-

1. Drink shed loads of water; you don’t understand appreciate water so much as when you’re actually there.
2. Wear a high factor sun cream- see; I’m sounding like your mother already.
3. Make friends, Beni was the friendliest place I’ve ever been in my life.
4. Eat FOOD. I advise Nutrigrain bars. I got through 8 boxes. Lovely.
5. Spend at least one hour in the shower a day! You’ll see what i mean what you get there.  Cold showers have never been so nice.

 Where to Eat

Eat at a restaurant called Terra Magica. ( i want to buy that place, it was amazing) Two Beers and a pizze is 7.50 euros and a baguette and a beer is 4 euros. Thats the cheapest place we found and the nicest. Pool table, table tennis, little indoor football, and a GAINT ball pool- the ultimate come down after a good night. I saw about 8 random extremities coming out of that pool. Plus it had ‘FIB music’ playing as it advertised. It did as stated, with the odd smiths song thrown in (Morrissey would not be pleased)

My Beni best bits:

Pete Doherty sitting down and reading hand written lyrics of a scrap piece of paper.

Not sleeping from Sunday morning till Monday night.

In a nutshell the whole festival, every waking moment was fantastic.

But the ultimate highlight was when –during intimate time with a girl in his tent- our neighbour Tom asked me what time it was. To his disgust it was 3am and Mika had already started. ‘SHITE!’ he said ‘Mika’s already on? Sorry love, get your skirt, you’ll have to go.’

Crackin.

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