There's no bragging involved, simply informing, when I tell you I've been to my fair share of festivals over the past 6 to 7 years. When you've spent a fair few of your summers in a tent, or more suitably in front of a stage, you begin to identify the good from the bad, or what particular events acquire to your taste. So it's always pretty exciting to visit a festival that you've never 'done' before. As the UK festival market is so heavily saturated and the British summer weather takes a turn for worst year on year, it made sense to kill two birds with one stone and go to a festival abroad this year - the heat, the music, the camping, the beach, all in one.
This was my first festival away from the UK scene, and I'm not sure if it was the 40 degree heat or the company that did it, but dare I say this really was the best of the best. Usually those at the top of the bill really make a festival for me, those Radiohead, Prodigy, Kasabian and Killers sets create the festival highs and highlights. Sure this time round we saw some good'uns; Example surprised me as a fab crowd entertainer, Chase and Status killed it as they ALWAYS do, Crystal Castles were mad (I'm not entirely sure Alice knew which planet she was on...), as was Dizzee Rascal (to the guy who's shoulders I spent the entire set dancing on, I can only apologise, you know who you are!), and the Maccabees and Miles Kane just rained sheds of talent. My personal musical highlight was Little Dragon, a band fronted by Swedish-Japanese singer Yukimi Nagano. Our Benicassim festival crew originally introduced us to Little Dragon as I was shameful to admit I wasn't familiar with them at all pre Benicassim...however they are a band that I have since gone MAD for. Everyone and anyone who isn't familiar...LITTLE DRAGON! Youtube immediately. Nagano has mad good stage presence, showing off her crazy dance moves refusing to stop for the entire duration of their set, setting the crowd off into this total frenzy. Everyone was just performing the ultimate dance off for a good hour.
So all in all, yes the music was fab but, unlike so many other festivals I've attended, it wasn't the music alone that did it for me. I'm going to pull out one of the more finer clichés by telling you it was the ENTIRE atmosphere and experience that really made this festival a bit of a masterpiece, I think the sun had a big part to play in this, It's true what they say - good weather creates good vibes, and all in all everyone was loving life and happily bouncing off each other.
The atmosphere was so chill but that had a lot to do with the lack of sleep had by all as the sets began from 6pm and refused to finish until about 7am the next morning, so consequently everyone would sleep on the beach during the day, which is probably one of the more desirable places to be nursing a hangover and a worn out figure. My only criticism would be that the festival site itself was quite small, which in some ways bodes well for drunken festival go-ers because everything is super easy to find, but it would have been nice to have a few more sites to explore? A couple more stages to dance in front of perhaps? Oh, and be warned, thieving is BIG at Benicassim (R.I.P. wallet, id, cards etc). Find below some of my favourite memories from the festival, and the nearest and dearest that I shared the experience with, ultra fantastical!
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