Benicassim Sunday - Chinese Lunch and A waltz to end the Festival
We were knackered. It is hard for us to admit when we are tired, but Friday knocked us for six and then Saturday we didn’t go to bed until 7am. Sunday we’d been out all day, had our traditional FIB Sunday Chinese lunch and a walk around town, and now we were seriously zombified and would like a night off. But we couldn’t, because the last night of the Fifteenth FIB awaited us. So off we went!
We got there and left straight away as had phone calls from three of our best boy pals that have been away traveling for a year and just got back, to say they were dropping friends off at the main entrance and could we come and say Hola! So off we ran to do that, and then ran to catch Friendly Fires, who had gathered quite a crowd at the FIBERFIB stage, despite the fact that not many people had heard about the rescheduling to fit in Los Planetas, another band who were supposed to have played Friday night. Running is not something we do often, and poor Anita went absolutely flying, face down, slipping on a lethal FIB plastic glass, making the surrounding crowd scream in shock and the poor love, completely mortified, got up and ran away, refusing the help of the strapping young men reaching to her aid. We caught a good half hour of Friendly Fires, loving it then realising that poor A was slightly more damaged from her spectacular fall than we had originally thought (she put on a v. brave face!), and took her to the ambulance men. Who very kindly mopped up her grazed knees and elbows, told her they wouldn’t have to amputate quite yet and sent her off to have a good time. Off we limped (well Anita!) again to catch one of Anita’s faves of 2009, Lykke Li. What a lady! Roisin Murphy may have made a big mistake not coming this year as we may have just found the new Queen of Benicassim - or at least a competitor to the throne. Dressed in the most amazing black outfit, barefoot (“Somebody stole my shoes!”), dripping in gold necklaces - is that a key? to the castle!? - she did not stop moving for the whole hour and a half. Her present to her crowd was singing Kings of Leon’s Knocked Up, as they let us all down on Friday, then getting in a huff and telling us all that she hoped we would all scream that loud when she sang her own songs! We then ran, and I mean ran, again, and crowd dipped to get to the others who had been watching The Killers from the start to catch the last 20 minutes of their epic concert. What a stage presence the old Killers have, sounding slightly knackered by the end of it, but giving it their all, they finished with a song from their latest album and had the crowd going mad during every momento. We took ourselves off the the press tent to grab a hamburger at the bar, and were slightly shocked when a very camp guy with an organisation pass turned to me to tell me that ”That’s a very small burger for a big bum”, then proceeded to giggle and walk away with his friend. Anita and I stood shellshocked for a moment. Who was this man to tell me my bum was big? Should we go after him and kick his? And then suddenly realised he had said bun!
Birdy Nam Nam at the FibClub stage were brilliant, and the crowd, worked up by the Killers, danced off their sweat and excitement under the shelter of the new tent and its ultra tall ceilings.
We then caught the whole of «rinôçérôse» who were the Green Stage closing act, danced and laughed with some random men dressed as smurfs, watched them leave the stage and ballet danced for half an hour to the most beautiful Strauss music that the fib organisation put on to say good bye to the green stage. Imagine 40,000 odd people exhausted on a barmy festival night ballet dancing and ballroom dancing with people they have never met, all in perfect euphoric harmony. Can you think of a better way to end a music festival?
We love you all. See you next year.
Anita&Lolita. xxx
©2009 Anita Darling And Lolita Devine for thisisvalencia.com
Benicassim, Saturday Night - ‘After the Winds and Fire…’
Sunday afternoon, and I am sitting by the pool with Anita and thanking God, or whoever is up there, for behaving and not putting on a storm or rain or even a little bit of wind for the third night of FIB. To be completely honest with you all, after the awful ordeal on Friday the last thing we wanted to do was put on our plimsoles and headbands, and go dancing, but we did. And it was worth it! We started the evening late by catching The Mighty Stef in the vodafone tent, boogying around the stage in their cutest check shirts they had the crowds casually bopping to their indie music. We then caught most of Elbow, who we would like to shamefully admit we were not to familiar with until seeing them live but have since ordered most of their cds on amazon, as we absolutely loved him, a mix of the magic numbers and david gray and coldplay is the only way i think i can describe them to you, and what a lovely lovely man is Guy Garvey! We met a girl in the loos with a VIP bracelet who told us she met him 10 years ago when she was 19 and couldn’t wait to track him down to tell him what a sweet person he was. He stood in front of the massive silent crowd and read from a piece of paper in broken Spanish saying that he was happy to be here but his Spanish is crap and why don’t they just get on with the singing! We then went for a walk, checked out the silent disco (had some simply stupid photos taken of all of us with the headphones on, we just CANNOT leave a fib with out those piccys for the fridge!), having a beer with some (new!) twitter friends, and got denied entrance to the FIB Heineken ice bar, VIPS and SPECIALS ONLY we were told, by invitation only, Anita showed them our press passes and we got a snigger, nice one Heineken. No-one, not even in the press tent could tell us where to get an invite. So off we went, slightly red in the faces. Lily Allen and her suspicious tummy bug hadn’t decided to put in a surprise appearance so lucky Maxïmo Park got her slot, having been cancelled the night before what with all the nature drama. They opened their set on the Green Stage with ”Good evening everyone, we are not Lily Allen, we are MAXIMO PAAARK!” and received a hugely warm welcome from the enormous crowd that had gathered. After watching them, we ran around like little buzzy bees, trying to catch the end of The Wave Pictures, the beginning of Underwater Tea Party and Peaches before 2ManyDjs. Peaches did it again. The whole band had their hoods up to begin with, and she arrived on stage decked in a voluminous luminous pink ballooning jacket and gold knee high boots, of course, please take a moment to appreciate photos, stripping gradually off to a gold and black catsuit, then stripping off to something else, again, please see photos! I have never, in all 6 FIBs I have attended, seen SUCH a crowd gather at the FIBERFIB stage, thankgoodnessme its open air this year! We then plonked ourselves down on the cement with some yummy baguettes and had some dinner with the boys, saving our energy for 2ManyDjs, that were due on in 20 minutes. I have never ever seen such a crowd gather, a see of happy people waiting for the fantastic Dewaele brothers from norway that came on stage looking very dapper in tuxedoes with all their might and enough special effects and lights to light up the whole of benicassim. Funkytown, an MJ tribute (thankyou boys, you made our weekend!), smiley face lights, a mad crowd, what more can you ask for on a saturday fib night? They closed the set with Nirvana, leaving us with the sensation that they long deserved their slot on the Green Stage - no more sticky tents for Radio Soulwax!
Lots of love children, i have just been handed a huge cuban coctail by our host, and cannot write anymore. Tonight - the killers, lykke li and lots more……
Words and Photo ©2009 thisisvalencia.com
Benicassim - Very definitely NOT a disaster
A longer summary is on its way but we would like to clear up a few facts about last weekends events at Benicassim. There was no hurricane. The festival was not cancelled. On Friday night there were horrific winds. There was a fire in a field across from the festival site but it was under control and put out within half an hour. The winds were so strong that the site was evacuated for the safety of everyone attending. The organisation did all they could to get everything in order for the next day, and things ran pretty smoothly the rest of the weekend, considering the fact that the kind of weather that hit Benicassim on day 2 of the festival was completely unprecedented.
Perhaps the only thing that could have been bettered was the information given out by the organisation, as it was unclear when the bands from Friday would be playing if they could reschedule them at all, but general feedback is that everyone had a pretty good time considering! There are several reports flying around the internet that it was all a disaster, mainly fuelled by Oasis’ technical problems onstage on the Thursday, but by all accounts this has been happening during their whole tour. We also have heard reports of hundreds and hundreds of passports being stolen, but the British Consulate Press office in Madrid have confirmed directly to us that they have issued around 160 emergency passports around that weekend - from Barcelona down to Alicante, so could be anything from 1 to 160 in Benicassim only.
….And we can only begin to wonder what Bianca Gascoigne got up to between Friday and yesterday - if you’re one of the boys she hitched to Calais with we would love to hear from you!
©2009 thisisvalencia.com
Benicassim
Most people at Festival Internacional de Benicassim 2009 were extraordinarily well dressed :-S
©2009 thisisvalencia.com
Benicassim
Or not! - dressed, that is. A naked guy at Festival Internacional de Benicassim 2009
©2009 thisisvalencia.com
