Benicassim 2011

It's a rainy Bank Holiday Monday, more than a month after I got back from Benicassim, and to cheer myself up from the sheer misery of August feeling like December and realising that festival season has, ultimately, nearly ended, I thought I'd recap with a blog of my time at Benicassim (which I promised ages ago!) so I can reminisce and forget how utterly miserable I am to currently be in Britain.

We flew from Liverpool John Lennon airport to Alicante - then hung around Alicante train station for about 4 hours waiting for our train connection to Benicassim, as you can't fly there directly. We had our luggage with us so couldn't go for a massive wander but in-between sticking to plastic chairs and going for several pisses to pass the time, we had a little wander around Alicante. In contrast to the chilly English morning before our flight departed, the sun in Alicante was so hot that it was painful to walk and I could only cope with about 10 minutes outside before I wanted to go back in the shade for fear that my skin would start to melt and I would collapse onto the floor in a pile of gooey, suncream-soaked skin and ginger hair. Thankfully this didn't actually happen. Due to my sheer idiocy at thinking Benicassim was in the middle of nowhere, I was frantically searching for a shop selling alcohol and festival supplies in Alicante because I didn't realise that Benicassim was an actual town with actual shops. Alcohol is insanely cheap in Spain - as are cigarettes, and, well, pretty much everything else. You could easily get a 70cl bottle of vodka for 4 euros (about £3.50) and I'm pretty sure beer was cheaper than water in one shop...

Inside the train station there were asleep Beni-goers everywhere. The shop behind also sold a range of crazy things like lamps in the shape of Buddha heads - marvellous. What I've always needed to accompany me on a long train journey.

Once we caught our train the journey took about 3 hours which seems a long time after already flying but there was air-con and the journey was quite alright. There were allocated seats so if you were travelling with friends and didn't book your tickets together you'd more than likely be sat on your own, but this wasn't much of a problem as 95% of people on the train were going to Benicassim and the majority of them were from Preston. They played the horrendous film Burlesque on the TVs both for the journey there and the journey back - I'm not sure whether the Spanish train system has some kind of allegiance with Christina Aguilera but either way, you couldn't really watch it because it was in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles. Most people just had a nap or got drunk instead. Some annoying girls who wouldn't have been out of place on Skins got wasted and started flirting with a 50-year old Spanish man called José until they could convince him to shout "REEM" down the carriage - I don't watch The Only Way Is Essex but I believe this is some terrible catchphrase from it and frankly anyone using the word in a real-life setting should be burnt at the stake, á la Joan of Arc.

The train journey itself was quite scenic and when I wasn't asleep I was transfixed by all the graffiti everywhere - I don't think we went past an inch of wall that wasn't covered in it. It made for some light reading as we would go past an English word now and again, the main culprits being "BITCH" and "ARSE".

We walked from the train station to the festival (they had buses running but we couldn't be bothered waiting and it was only a 15 minute walk) and then had to lug our stuff for the half a mile of bloody metal fences to enclose the non-existent queue when we arrived - dragging a suitcase down the dustiest path ever in the heat was truly exhausting, at one point I thought my arm was going to fall off (*note for next time, don't bring anything on wheels). We met up with friends and set up our tent in Camp FIB which was about a 5 minute walk from the main arena. There was also a camp nearer to the beach but you had to pay extra to camp there (for the small luxury of separate shower cubicles etc). Bearing in mind the festival only started on the Thursday, by 6pm on Monday our campsite was close to full, causing many people to set up camp in the field next to us. It was completely swamped with water and you couldn't help but feel sorry for it's new inhabitants, as the look of complete misery swept over their faces and they lugged their belongings through the soggy field. It was like a scene from a sad war film apart from instead of weapons and war uniforms they were carrying lilos and wearing dickhead sunglasses.

Us about an hour after we got there and had met up with the comrades - woohoo! We made it etc!

 Lovely sunset on the first night. It made me all soppy and happy.

There were loads of trees around the campsite which was handy as you could hang stuff like towels and bikinis on them and they'd dry really quickly. It helped to keep an eye on these though - a few girls got their bikinis nicked by drunken boys. One night it was exceptionally windy causing the outside of our tent to blow off at 5am and a deckchair to blow into my head, to which I yelled "FUCK OFF YOU BASTARD!", shortly after realising that I was actually shouting at the wind. I nearly lost my bikini bottoms that night after they were firmly plucked from the tree branch upon which they were hanging by heavy winds, but i soon found them a bit further down the camp before some doped up boy came along and tried to put them on his head, or something of the like.

It made sense to try and get a spot under the sheets because otherwise it was boiling and you'd roast like a chicken. The floor was rough as fuck - even through a roll mat and a pillow you could feel the stones and it was practically impossible to hammer your tent down because the ground was so hard. Most people just bought lilos or airbeds to sleep on but I just went with my flimsy roll-mat and was partly immobile by the end of the week. The views were amazing - the mountains in the background got most of the rain whenever clouds appeared and although on the first night there was a slight thunder storm - in fact some of the loudest thunder I've ever heard, thinking "Oh fuck why did I do this? This festival is going to be wank" it blew over in 10 minutes and was enjoyable more than anything.

We went down to the beach most days as it was only a 20-30 minute walk, depending on how hungover you were or how fast you could be bothered walking. It would also be wise to occasionally stop and fan yourself down or throw a bottle of water over yourself - I know I've said it already but it was BLOODY HOT! REALLY BOILING! There wasn't much to do in the campsite in the day so most people went for a wander either to the beach or the town. The beach was gorgeous and there were random bands playing most days. There were also arts & culture displays throughout the town to check out but we didn't catch any of these as we were too busy playing volleyball in the sea and having nosebleeds (well...that was just me). On the first night there was a beach party which looked like a lot of fun but we were too knackered to go and decided to catch up on sleep so we weren't fucked for the rest of the week. It's a long time if you're only used to 3-4 day festivals and considering the music was only on the last few days you had to be sensible to pace yourself, for the heat if nothing else. I didn't drink nearly as much as I thought I would because 1. it was so hot I don't think I could've been able to bear being hungover and 2. I seemed to get drunk really quickly, I'm guessing due to de-hydration and sweating out the alcohol. I must have drank about 3 litres of water a day but didn't piss any more than usual - sorry, TMI - which is why you have to drink loads of water or YOU'LL DIE! (not to sound like the nagging mother but really...come on people. Staying alive is quite important). Anyway back to the beach. It was really clean and the sand was great - this random American camping with us had been in Barcelona and kept going on about how shit the beach there was but this one was lovely. The sand was even a perfect consistency to bury our friends in and give them raging sand cock erections (see below).

Phwoar. Impressive.

LOOK AT THE NICE BEACH! I had to use factor 50 as my skin tone reflects that of Edward Cullen (unfortunately) but it meant that all of the sand stuck to me so whatever tan/burn I got was speckled. Also about 10 minutes in the sea was enough to leave me with shoulders burnt enough to look like an overcooked Yorkshire Pudding and so if I go back I might consider wearing some kind of sun protection suit to avoid the bother. If, however, you are less pale you'll still need to use loads of suncream because after an hour or two in the sun most of us resembled a smacked arse. I swear I had about 8 layers on every day and by the end of the week all of us half-pale, half-burnt gingers gave each other the "I feel your pain" nod as we waddled off to make our journey home with sunburnt bums and red noses.

One of the things I loved about the festival was that it felt like a proper holiday, with the added bonus of having music and being able to get away with "festival style" - basically walking around half naked and drunk, without brushing your hair all day. I actually think I had more fun slumming it in tents for a week than I would have done in a hotel, purely because camping's always a laugh but also because we had decent access to communal showers and the toilets weren't even that bad. They were pretty clean for festival loos, the only bad thing being they didn't have any hand gel anywhere and everyone eventually got the shits. Mmm. You could go for showers whenever, and unlike going for a shower at a UK festival no-one felt weird about it - in fact I could've walked around comfortably in my bikini because no one gave a shit about what anyone looked like. Most people showered in their bikinis although there were quite a lot of topless girls in the showers too *hears klaxons go off in most mens heads about how they need to go to Benicassim next year* and the only time you really saw naked people was at 4am when people were off their tits and decided to have a communal naked shower. However, this didn't stop me seeing a VERY naked Spanish man in the showers at 2pm with the most blatant erection I've ever seen. In fact, I don't know how he even maintained it because the showers were FREEZING, but let's just say that despite a ban on barbecues there was still plenty of sausage on-site.

Lovely.

We found a nice fountain and obviously had to jump in.

Nice looking building #395846 

"Oh I wonder what that word means in Spanish?" uttered my mum as I showed her my holiday photos...

So the town of Benicassim itself was really nice. I was slightly worried it'd be one of those tacky tourist resort towns but it wasn't at all, just a nice authentic Spanish town. There were enough stands around for tourists and the notorious Chinese shop selling EVERYTHING but also loads of traditional Spanish cafés and restaurants, all at decent prices. There were also lots of supermarket shops for food so if you didn't want to live off beans all week or try and keep food cool you could just buy something each day. Everything was madly cheap and we ended up living off bread, cheese and Allioli - it was impossible to keep things cool and even cool boxes were useless in the heat for anything other than sitting on. After going to the beach once, absolutely everything became covered in sand and dust for the rest of the week and I think most of the calories I consumed were actually from dust. Yum.

As usual it's important to see where the locals are eating - there will be nice places to eat and truly rank places. We ate at a nice little café but had a problem with the bill every time, so if you do eat out you definitely need to check these things. Also you may end up with a lasagne that looks like this:

You could get a better lasagne in Iceland for 50p, probably. (Be warned).

Em and I chilling back at camp. We ended up buying chairs and sitting in them for most of the week because it was too hot to move.

Now to talk about the music - finally. Due to the heat in the day the bands started at about 6pm and went on until 4am, with DJ sets going on until 6-7am. Although unconventional compared to UK festivals, I thought it was quite good as you could do whatever you wanted to do in the day and then staying up to watch the bands wasn't so hard because it was just like a couple of nights out in a row. By the time the sun set it was a really comfortable temperature considering we would've been sweating buckets if the bands were on in the day. Another good thing is that despite it being an alright temperature the crowd wasn't squashed together - even towards the front everyone had their own space so you weren't sweating like a pig in a woolly jumper and also had room to dance however you wished. I saw some shocking dance moves that will probably never leave my memory.

The lads we were camping with ended up with Royal Mail high-vis jackets to which I kept making puns like "that's quite a large package you've got there" and "I think your package is too big to fit through my letterbox". I'd then laugh at myself because I'm so bloody hilarious.

Going into the venue lads get frisked and girls generally didn't. I managed to sneak alcohol in with me every day either in the front of my shorts (apparently large pubic bulges on girls aren't a strange thing in Spain) or concealed under a scarf. You can only buy drinks with tokens in the arena (2.50 euros each) which will buy you a beer or a bottle of water. For a spirit and a mixer it's 3 tokens (7.50 euros - not cheap!) but apparently they don't do it in measures, simply "say when" so you could probably get a whole cup of vodka if you wanted. So not that bad for the money, but even better if you can sneak your own in. Tee hee.

Thursday: The Streets, Chase & Status, Jack Beats

Hahahaha

We only ended up going down to the music for about 1am as we thought we'd drink a bit first and then go down. I thought I didn't like The Streets but they were amazing live, plus considering it was one of their last shows ever it was amazing to see them. People were really getting into it and everyone went mental for "Fit But Don't You Know It". I think they sound ten times better live than they do on their albums too, so it's a shame they're stopping touring! We caught the end of Chase & Status who were full of energy as usual and then went to watch Jack Beats. Considering I was somewhat sober by 2am when Jack Beats came on and everyone around me was either wasted or pilled up I could have probably enjoyed it a bit more if I had more to drink but it was still a laugh. It wasn't so much people watching the stage as a load of people just dancing in their own space on a dusty bit of ground, surrounded by a border of arty-looking French boys eyeing up all of the girls (and boys) bums.


Friday: Elbow, The Stranglers, James Murphy, Friendly Fires


We saw Elbow who were really good but it was strange seeing them at 11pm at night as they're very much a "sunset band". Started a bit slow with The Birds - I'm not a massive fan of the new album though - and then did the usual hits. They went out on One Day Like This as expected which was probably one of my highlights of the weekend. After Elbow came The Strokes but considering I think The Strokes are a boring, over-hyped, pile of wanky crap we stayed for the intro of one song and then thought "nah fuck it" and went for a wander instead. I've seen them before and they lacked any energy and you're either a Strokes fan or you're not, and if you're not mad about them you'd probably be disappointed by seeing them live. Plus a girl in front of us puked just as they started playing (either out of excitement or boredom) so more the reason to leave. The rest of the arenas were empty in comparison (everyone was at The Strokes, the nutters) and we caught the end of The Stranglers with an unbelievably small crowd. Then came James Murphy who I recognised as being "that guy from LCD Soundsystem" but otherwise you wouldn't have had a clue who he was. Regardless, he was excellent and people were having a right old dance next to the portaloos. We also found a little garden thing with deckchairs and a pool - the water of which was of a questionable murky colour, but it didn't stop everyone jumping in.

Then came Friendly Fires. My mate Jazz had a power-nap in the queue for them considering they were playing from 3-4am and we were tired as hell but they're such an energetic band that once they came on everyone perked up, especially as they started with "Lovesick". We stayed for most of the set until I had to leave because I thought I was going to faint - really, DRINK WATER! OR YOU WILL DIE! (or feel a bit shitty).

Saturday: Mumford & Sons, Beirut, Arctic Monkeys, Primal Scream


Mumford & Sons - good, did a little jig, can't remember anything else, haha. Beirut were really good, we stayed for a couple of songs and they were a lot better live than I thought they'd be - kind of thought the mish-mash of instruments might just sound like a load of old noise but it wasn't. 

We laughed at the WC sign on this pole as there wasn't a toilet anywhere near. I was tempted to have a piss on it just to make a statement, but I was wearing a playsuit and everyone knows you can't piss easily in a playsuit.


Couldn't be arsed with Arctic Monkeys so we sat it out but sang along to them from a distance. By this point I was quite drunk and a bit *whatever* so I maybe should have gone to see them but I frankly couldn't be arsed. Then Primal Scream! Bobby came on in a silver jumpsuit thing turning his penis into a giant glitterball and they were very, very good. There was a lad in front of us dancing like it was the 1990s. It was all very odd, like going back in time. Or maybe that was just the rum. We left just before the end because we were tired but the good thing about having a tent so near to the arena was that even if you weren't actually watching the bands you could hear them perfectly, causing me to sing "GET YOUR ROCKS OFF GET YOUR ROCKS OFF HONEY" lying down in my tent whilst wiggling around, much to the annoyance of probably everyone around. I'm glad no one smothered me in my sleep.


Sunday: Noah & The Whale, Professor Green, Portishead, Arcade Fire, Roska


Noah & The Whale = superb! Professor Green = alriiiiight.

During Portishead. I can only assume this photo was taken by a 9 foot tall man.

Portishead! I think seeing Roads live was my highlight of the festival if not the best performance I've ever seen. Never felt that way watching a band...ever. The graphics on the screen were really good too, especially during the slower songs when it was probably easier to nod off. 

Arcade Fire! So so good.

Then we saw Roska for a bit but again we were too tired and wanted some food. We went to buy slices of pizzas bigger than our heads and then went to bed and nodded off straight away. A brilliant end to a seriously amazing week.


Costs - for flights we paid around £180 return but that was pretty late and you could get them a lot cheaper far in advance. For a return train ticket it came to just under £60. The actual ticket itself cost around £180 for 4 days of music and 7 days camping which is excellent value compared to the cost of UK festivals - plus you get a holiday and a festival in one. AND EVERYTHING IS SO BLOODY CHEAP OVER THERE! I can't recommend it enough. Plus it had the best festival atmosphere I've encountered so far. I'd definitely go back, I actually think it was the most fun I've ever had in a week. I LOVE YOU BENI!


(p.s. thank you Jazz and Patrick for some of the photos which my shitty disposable cameras could not capture, god damn you Kodak)