Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. Illustration by Patty Bowman
As I write this I’m exhausted; I’ve slept all weekend and still haven’t fully recovered from Beach Break. I’ve got an impressive tan line from my wristband that keeps distracting me. Yes, a week in Wales really was that much fun and it really was that hot.
As festivals go, I’m not a fan of park and ride and I’m not a fan of limiting the amount of alcohol you can take into the site. Beach Break does both, and it’s a massive pain in the bum. You can only take one trip from your car to the campsite. If, like me, you’re lumbered with the tent, it’s pretty hard work.
I rocked up about an hour after the gates opened with a few friends and it didn’t take us long to get into the campsite. I think we were the lucky ones – I heard stories of people waiting six hours to get in.
The first night at Beach Break is strange. The camping field is only half full and there’s not much going on. It’s a great chance to explore the site and have a catch up with your campers. The Monday at Beach Break is always just a low-key, chilled night of fun. I might have drank more than the first night’s ration of vodka and fallen into a tent full of people, but that’s just how I roll. The boys found it pretty amusing – the girls did not.
This year’s site was stunning. The beach was absolutely beautiful and everything was pretty close without worrying about sound clashes between different tents. I spent the first morning nursing my hangover on the beach, but it got too cold so I went to watch two groups of friends compete in the Gaelic Games.
The Gaelic Games are run by these guys called Bearded Kitten. They have a shocking taste in music (especially the short one) but organise a strange tournament every year that sees people, amongst other things, run an assault course in a sumo suit, jelly wrestle (when my friend got accused of groping a girl) and tug of war. The winner gets tickets to next year’s Beach Break. I’ll be honest – the team that won were so unpopular with the crowd that people were cheering competing teams on, in the desperate hope they’d get knocked out.
Silver Columns
The main stage didn’t draw much of a crowd on any day. The main stage highlights were Silver Columns, who no one really danced to but were incredible; Vampire Weekend – a band so perfect that they blew me away; and Chase and Status, whose set was as you would imagine but ten times better.
Kurran and the Wolfnotes were great live. It was a shame they didn’t have a bigger crowd – I’ve been listening to them a lot since I saw them support Lightspeed Champion. They were the band I begged all my friends to watch, and they were even better this time. One of my favourite bands of the year, easily.
The Ruskins are a band who opened the main stage on the Wednesday. I remember them from last year – they spent ages flyering, putting up stickers and persuading people to check them out. The guys told me that they played the main stage this year because at the 09 festival they had a guerrilla gig that drew about 500 people in. They’re worth checking out – I reckon they’ve got big things ahead of them in a couple of years. One ACM band that was really great live was called 10p Short – an acoustic, folk rock band that killed it at the ACM tent.
Fenech Soler
My favourite dance band of the year, Fenech-Soler, played too. They were the best daytime band by far. They’re playing pretty much every festival going so if you get the chance to watch them, you really should. They look like they’ve borrowed their girlfriends’ sequin tops when they perform. The band are so good they please the dance fans as well as the indie kids, and that’s a hard trick to pull off.
For me this year was about the dance line up. They had some incredible people play and the dance tent was rammed. Annie Mac was typically brilliant, as were Jack Beats, High Contrast, and Sub Focus. There’s not much new I can say about these guys because they’re all at the top of their game. They were as much fun as you’d expect. The only downside was Annie Mac ending her set on a Florence, because I hate the song. Everyone else in the tent loved it, though.
There weren’t many disappointments, apart from Example who had little soul in his performance. Fake Blood was the biggest let down for me. I’ve listened to the Fake Blood mini mix done for Annie Mac many times, and I expected those skills to be delivered live, but they just weren’t. The music got a bit repetitive after a while – he didn’t really mix it up at all. A couple of people performed like it was an easy pay cheque for them, which was a massive shame when others like Vampire Weekend put in masses of effort.
There were some serious flaws with the organisation, like the taps being turned off, forcing us to buy festival priced bottled water so we didn’t dehydrate; a complete lack of shade near the main stage, so I had to hide backstage so I didn’t melt; and the park and ride was a nightmare on the way home. I can’t help but feel these were teething problems caused by the fact that this was only the first year the festival was at the site.
It’s been a year since I was a student, but we had so much fun that we’ve already started talking about next year’s festival. If they can get as many good DJs and bands as they did this year, then I’ll be there.
Tags:
Annie Mac, Beach Break, Chase & Status, Ezra Koenig, Fenech Soler, festival, Lightspeed Champion's, Silver Columns, The Ruskins, Vampire Weekend, wales
