Festival Internacional de Benicāssim 2007
Benicāssim, Valencia, Spain
17 - 20 July 2007
Another summer comes and with it another edition of the Festival Internacional de Benicàssim is taking place. For many people this festival has become like a family tradition, like opening the presents on Christmas time or blowing the candles on your birthday cake. It's just something you can't do without. For me the festival has always been very special, as I have been attending it every year since it began on 1995, when it was still the only big independent festival being celebrated in Spain. I remember being at the college and hearing rumours saying that a huge festival was taking place near Valencia. I heard that many of my favourite bands at the moment, which I had never seen live, were going to play there all together! I just couldn't believe it and was dying to be there. Fortunately, this rumours finally proved to be true and I could be one of the 7000 people attending the festival that first year. There was not such a big crowd as we can see there today, but the line up was already amazing. I'll never forget seeing the Charlatans, the Pastels, Ride or Heavenly in the velodrome of Benicàssim, which was the location of the festival for its three first years. It was a very special place to see a concert, as you could even see the show while laying on the inclined tracks where the bicycles ride. It was nearly as lying in a hammock! A hard one though... During those three years the festival began to become very popular and to grow considerably, to such extent that the organization had to look for another location to be able to add more stages and hold more people. Many things have change on the festival since those first editions, but many other things remains the same: the music, the nice atmosphere between the people attending, the beach, the sun and the cold water on the showers of the camping site, which are the best way to refresh yourself and get fit before heading to a long day and night of live music.
One of the positive things that has been added after the fist editions is the opening party which takes place on the Thursday before of three official festival days. It is a party where you can already see many good concerts and which unfortunately I missed this year and I'm still regretting it, as I listened to the concerts of Mando Diao and Iggy Pop on the radio and they really rocked!
So I arrived to the festival on Friday and after setting my tent on the camping site and taking my revitalizing shower I decided to begin the festival with Nouvelle Vague, whose pop covers of 80's hits are always a nice way of getting into the mood. Then I headed to see Rufus Wainwright, who appeared shining on stage on a colourful suit and began his show singing Release the stars, the song with the same name of his last album. He kept changing from the piano to the guitar while other musicians accompanied him with two more guitars, one bass, drums, one saxophone, one trumpet and a horn. He played almost all the songs of his last work and finished the show with an impressive cover of the Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, this time dressed on a white bathrobe. After that I went to see Antony and the Johnsons, whose show was not so excessive as he didn´t have so meny outfits and dancers to entertain us, but his voice was enough to keep us moved during every one of the sixty minutes that last his show.
I thought then it was time for something more cheerful and decided to see OK where I could enjoy a real party and a rock concert which finished with one of their hits: Do What You Want. When this concert finished I felt like dancing more and went to see the Klaxons, who had to play later than they were expected due to problems with their flight. They had to play in a different stage too, a smaller one than the one they had been assigned first and I guess it was a bit too small for such a popular band at the moment. It was very difficult for me to approach the fist line and see them properly, but the good thing is that the tent where they where finally playing could give the show a dancing party feeling which had been missed in the Escenario Verde, the stage where they were supposed to play at the beginning.
Now it was time to see the headliners of Friday night: Devo, which played all their hits, among them "Whip it", "Beautiful World" and their cover of "Satisfaction" dressed in their peculiar suits.
The first set I wanted to se on Saturday was Albert Hammond Jr.'s, which was interrupted due to a power cut in the middle of his great song Back to the 101. However, this incident didn't prevent him to give a good concert that pleased all his fans. After that I moved to the Fiberfib tent where Nic Offer, the singer of !!!, appeared like a whirlwind on the stage and didn't stop dancing for a second to the mixture of rock, funky and electronic rhythms of their music. I stayed there during the beginning of the concert and then went to see the more relaxing show of Camera Oscura, the kind of music was a very big contrast but the Scottish band also managed to cheer up the crowd with their pop melodies. After that on the main stage appeared the headliners of the night: the Arctic Monkeys, who have so long been gaining experience on huge stages and proved that they are not at all scared of such a big and mad crowd as the one that was standing in front of the Escenario Verde. The people danced and sang to the hits of the two albums of the band, including I bet you look good on the dance floor, Fluorescent Adolescent and Fake Tales. When they finished I stayed in my position to see another of the legendary bands of the festival: the B52's, who began their set not rising much enthusiasm among the expectators, but anyway the crowd couldn't refuse to dance as soon as they heard the popular eighties tunes like Rock Lobster, Private Idaho and Love Shack. As it was Saturday night and I felt like keep on dancing for a while, so I went to see Lo-Fi-Fink, who provided me the best way of ending the night dancing at their electro pop songs which are included on the only album they have so far Boylife.
Sunday was my last day at the festival, as I couldn't stay on Monday night for the party that takes place at the beach, which is free and always includes popular electronic DJs. The first band I saw on the early evening that day was the Hives, whose singer, Howlin' Pelle Almquist, spent nearly most time speaking than singing in an attempt to convince us that they are "los reyes del mundo de la música rock" [the international kings of rock music] repeating that phrase in Spanish time after time. I found that a bit annoying but at the same time they were really convincing me how good they are each time they played one of their rock hits like I Hate To Say I Told You So, A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T
or Two-Timing Touch and Broken Bones. After that I moved to one of the tents to see another Swedish band, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Their singer, Alec Ounsworth, impressed me once again with his voice and the band played more songs from their first album than from their second one, being the first one more crazy and chaotic and thus more appropriate to cheer up the audience at the festival. I stayed on the same tent waiting for Patrick Wolf to appeared, he hit the stage nearly half an hour late, but the expectators soon stopped complaining as this young boy provided us a brilliant set and I notice that both he and the audience really enjoyed the show. I moved back to the main stage to see the end of the set of Black Revel Motorcycle Club and I didn't regret having been there at the beginning as they were having sound problems and they kept playing so long guitar solos that they ended up being kind of boring. Muse were the headliners on this last day of the festival. I have never liked their music style so I only stayed for a couple of songs to admire the big stage which was completely decorated with neon lights, balloons and different screens. Then I went back to the Vodafone Fib Club tent to see Datarock, who made us dance till all my energy was exhausted. It was definatelly a lovely happy ending for this Festival Internacional de Benicàssim 2007, which I finished, as I always do, already thinking in being there next year!
by Rosa Gregori
Write a comment
- Required fields are marked with *.