Benicassim - 2006

20 Jul 2006 - 17:00
24 Jul 2006 - 08:00
Etc/GMT+1

Who wants to come to the best festival in the world this year?



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2006 Fairly Briefly

Met Rich & Dan in Barcelona where we went to the Summercase festival, on a great site which is really far huger than required for the size of the festival. There is an excellent outdoor auditorium there with seats/steps cut into a hemisphere around the stage, there are also wandering barmen with huge tanks of beer strapped to their backs so you often don't have to leave your seat to get a drink.

At Summercase I saw the end of Belle & Sebastian, New Order ( who were brilliant ), Daft Punk ( who weren't bad ), Happy Mondays ( good ) and some other people too I think. Walked back down the beach one morning just after dawn which was very nice. Too drunk the following night so staggered back through Barcelona since Rich & Dan had vanished.

After Summercase it was camping in Benicassim. Didn't get a good pitch for the tent, no shade and no where to really lie around outside the tent, consequently it was very hot.

The first night we "took easy" in the town convincing each other to buy more and more lagers.

2nd night Dan & I went to drink on the beach whilst Richard had a nice sleep and recharged his batteries.

3rd night we went to the beach again to watch the Ballet which Richard claims he loved but Dan & I thought was pointless and dull, although the actual music was nice. An amusing Spanish heckler caused some amusement for a while. Richard claimed he was drunk and wanted to go home but Dan & I forced him to drink more lager and swim in the sea, he will later claim we were constantly bullying him which is not true at all. Then we forced him to walk back to the campsite and spent the rest of the night until dawn wandering aimlessly around the campsite chatting to all the other people wandering aimlessly around the campsite.

4th Night was the opening night of the festival so we watched some bands, the Scissor Sisters were pretty awful. Can't remember who else we watched but there is a good chance it was boom boom boom dancy nonsense which I now hate. It turned out to be light when we left the last act which had been very good even if they did include a large element of dancy nonsense they also played the Ramones which is much more like it.

5th Night was the Pixies ( I think ), they were great even though there was such crowding at the front that they had to take a break for half an hour whilst people sorted themselves out and cooled down. After that they played rather more chilled out versions of their songs but they played them very well and were still brilliant. They didn't play a single song which was anything less than fantastic, I'd like to see them again. After that there was some more wandering around I expect, Dan & I saw the Strokes who were pretty good but I lost Dan when I went off to find some cigarettes and came back to find the strokes had finished. I was feeling somewhat drunk so had a sit down and something to eat, and then a short sleep before heading off to see if I could find something to do. I found Le Hammon Inferno featuring Nossie who was a weird kind of a chap who wanted to us to wake up the beat because it was sleeping. He would periodically take of items of clothing and cause immensly powerful waves of the bass to pulse out from the speakers - I could feel every bone in my body vibrating and my skin rippling and I had only been drinking beer. Once Nossie had got the crowd suitably warmed up the Inferno began and they played a sort of danceable music which was interesting to listen to and still great to dance to. A Spanish girl and her friends were probably commenting on my amazing dancing but since I don't know any Spanish, they didn't speak English and our mutal hand gestures were unitelligible neither of us were very clear what was being said. Then it was light again and I walked back to the campsite just in time for the sun to have become very hot and make sleeping a very tricky task indeed. Eventually I gave up and went to sleep in the park by the beach for the rest of the day which was nice, shady and relaxing.

6th Night, this was apparently Dance night. First of all we saw 2 Many DJs but I think had already seen 2 Many DJs and became somewhat bored of it despite certain measures we had taken to guard against boredom. None the less I left them to it and went to lie down for a while on the grass where I very much enjoyed to listening to some guitar band or another I could hear from a nearby tent. It was very lovely lying around but I went to see the band and watched a few songs before they ended. Then I wandered around more or less randomly in a sort of a vague search for Rich & Dan. I didn't find them but was enjoying wandering around so much time flew and soon it was beginning to get light. I was walking past the bus stop when the bus arrived and I was able to jump right on which I was very pleased about. On the way back from the bus to the campsite I managed to trip over a hidden trip wire whilst climbing through a gap in a fence and get a big gash on my hand. My already dirty clothes became, muddy, bloodstained and filthy and I spent the next while cleaning up the cut and trying to get bits of gravel out of it. Since it was already light I decided to bypass the annoying trying to sleep in the tent stage and decided to head off down to the beach immediately. Rich came back and said he'd lost Dan and wasn't going to come to the beach with me. I thought about going to the waterpark instead but for no good reason decided to stick to the beach. There weren't all that many people on the beach yet so I set up in what I thought might be a shady spot later on when the sun got hotter. It was OK until around midday when the crusties began to move in behind me and shout and cause their dogs to bark loudly. I moved onto a more shady but uncomfortable patch of gravel in the park where I dozed for a bit longer. Later I had a shower in one of the beach showers and went to get something to eat via the leisure centre where I had a bit more of asleep on the tarmac forecourt. For various reasons there was nothing to eat so I went back to the campsite.

7th Night. We got down to the festival in time to see Coldcut who were excellent, I had a resurgence of energy and seemed to become drunk after only a litre of booze. Then we saw the end of depeche mode and hung around the main stage for the rest of the evening. Dan wandered back and forth in search of adventure and I became gradually more and more tired. I left Rich & Dan to it and went back to the campsite where I arrived around half four and before it was even light. After a reasonably good sleep Rich and I went to the water park since Dan had taken to going straight to the beach for his daily sleeping. The waterpark is great, i should have gone there the previous day.

Sounds good

No ill advised short cuts this time then?

(except the injurous fence of course)

Sadly no

I did suggest we try the hill way again but Rich and Dan just grunted and carried on down the road.

Actually I tell a lie, Dan and I did find a hidden entrance to the campsite from the bottom of the hill where we had to climb over a gate. The next night when we tried it I climbed over first and found myself trapped in a huge security cordon, a searchlight flicked on a stern Spanish voice seemed to be indicating that I could go no further in this direction. I had to sheepishly climb back over the gate and go all the way around to the proper entrance.

Shock Horror - ABONOS AGOTADOS !

It appears that all the 3 and 4 day tickets have now been sold. I think I got my ticket just in time. I guess this must have caught FIB by surprise too since they were planning on raising the prices of the tickets tomorrow.

Anyone who has a last minute change of heart and decides they simply cannot survive without having visited FIB can still buy tickets for each day individually and pay only 250 Euros for the whole experience.

No Camping

You don't get free camping with the day tickets so it will cost slightly more than that.

People can still come to the Summercase festival in Barcelona the week before.

Or to Sonar in a couple of weeks.

Final Lineup

Looks like there are a couple of good bands on every single night, Friday looks especially exciting, Pixies, 2 Many DJ's, Le Hammond Inferno and mucho mas.

Morrissey

Let's hope that that wierdo vegetarian Morrissey doesn't turn up again!

Saturday night is looking a bit thin on big acts I wonder if anyone else will be announced??

Who are ya, who are ya!!

Not many bands I have actually heard of there!! Who the fuck is 2 Many DJ's?

2 Many DJs are good, they

2 Many DJs are good, they mix up popular songs with each other to make new exciting songs which are often greater than the sum of their parts.

Soulwax

2manyDJs are Stephen and David Dawale, they are from Ghent in Belgium and they are cool but I don't know if they would fit in with your GWAR and Metallica CD's.

You can download some of there mixes from their website.

They are also members of Soulwax.

Col, saying that you have never heard of half the bands makes you sound like my parents. ;)

Co-incidence, or not ??

I have just bought one of their albums, would I have done that without this discussion ? Who can say, not I.

It turns out to have Peaches on it thoygh so I am too scared to listen to it :-(

Funk on down

Col is your father - you must accept that. Together you will rule the world and you can teach him about hip bands which "the kids" are "groovin' " to.

Dire Straits

I think they are listening to Dire Straits and Ry Cooder.

I like Dire Straits!

Out of that huge list of "bands" the only ones I would like to see are Scissor Sisters and maybe Depeche Mode and Madness at a push.

I would not go to my local park to see the rest let alone going all that way.

Mixing two songs to make another does'nt seem like much of a talent to me.

In my day DJ's were giving the respect they deserved for just putting a record on i.e. none whatsoever.

Maybe I am getting old but I am trying to do it gracefully ;)

Now leave me alone while I light my pipe and put my slippers on.

P.S. I do actually own a pair of slippers.

Pixies !

The Pixies are also an excellent band from the late 1980's, they have guitars, shouting and everything. The Pixies are great. The final song of the film Fight Club is a Pixies song ( Where is my mind ? ) and is in my opinion the best part of the entire film.

Hmmmm...

How old are you exactly Col?

Danny Rampling and Paul Oakenfold didn't start DJing until 1988 and people were mixing disco tracks in the late 1970's. And Jimmy Saville was the first ever person to use two decks, he got a local welder to join them together so that he could play continuous music and that was in the late 1950's. So 'ows boutn that then???

I notice that Paul and Kerri's favourite DJ is playing this year.

I don't want to grow old disgracefully I just want to catch up a little on the the time I wasted with Rebecca...

I own a pipe....

Anyway I'm looking forward to the festival even if spending a week partying till six in the morning and then recovering on the beach surrounded by hundreds of bikini clad young highly attractive women from all over Europe doesn't appeal to anyone else. ;-)

Pervin'

Bikini clad ? The main attraction for me is that the, dammed, europeans seem to be constantly forgetting the top half of the bikini costume !

He he he!

:)

Nice

I'd really like to see Pixies but I'm not really keen on seeing Morrisey ( which is OK since he probably wont turn up anyway ) however I'm up for this provided I can manage to save some money between now and then.

Three Months

I'd like to see the Pixies too. I wonder how old Kim Deal looks now.

You've got three months to save up. Tickets are £105 quid, so I'm figuring that if I dont go out one weekend I'll have enough for those and if I stay in the next weekend I'll have enough for the flights.

Both Leigh and Rich M have expressed an interest in going. As have Dan Dustbin (as long as he gets a job) and Emma. Sophie (Matt's girlfriend) and her mates are going too and already have their tickets.

Wrong job?

I think I'm in the wrong job - spending £105 per weekend each weekend? Last time I did that I had to spend two years hiding from the Vietnamese authorities.

Cheap Night.

£105 is a wild underestimation.

sums...

£105 per weekend.... a wild underestimation??

One can assume, therefore, that £150 might be closer to the mark. Therefore, £150 x 52 = £7800 per annum.

crumbs.

Re: sums...

[quote=deadmonkey]
crumbs.[/quote]

Well being a full time party animal isn't cheap. You havent taken into account Thursday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday either. :)

Wrong job?

I think I'm in the wrong job - spending £105 per weekend each weekend? Last time I did that I had to spend two years hiding from the Vietnamese authorities.

Kim

Not too bad: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sooz/1849126/ ( although there are some photos on the web where she looks around 60 and you don't actually see much of her in that photo I just linked to ). I think she is doing better than Black Francis anyway.

Cor'

She's hot, I would definitely do her !

no thanks, looks shit.

no thanks, looks shit.

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