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
