Sand and Deliver

Spain’s Festival Internacional de Benicassim (FIB) has all the hallmarks of one hell of a party. It’s located on the coast between Barcelona and Valencia so you’re pretty much guaranteed clear skies and hot hot heat, the price of booze and fags is but a fraction of the extortionate figures back home, the line-up of artists is both quality and diverse, and you have to get on a plane to get here, so you actually feel like you’re on holiday.

But while these elements do combine to good effect, it’s most definitely not Electric Picnic in the sun. For starters, the “beach party” assumption is a falsehood: FIB is in fact held on an airstrip a good 20 minute taxi ride from the beach, with only small patches of spiky grass and astroturf on which to chill out between the concrete. The heat too (particularly for campers) proved a nightmare since the festival is nocturnal, so the only time to get some sleep is after sunrise: quite a challenge in a tent with 30-plus degrees of Mediterranean sun beating down on it (Hot Press was exceedingly grateful to have four walls, a roof and air con, even if finding a cab to get to it took an average of two hours every night).
Kicking off proceedings on the Thursday night were Icelandic elf-men Sigur Ros, who played as close to a greatest hits set as a band such as they can, with ‘Hoppipolla’, ‘Glossoli’ and ‘Gobbledigook’ going down particularly well. Their cascades of crashing cymbals and Jon Birgisson’s epic whale-song vocals caused the heart to swell along with the soaring string section leaving a sea of wide-eyes and open-mouths in their wake. It’s a wonder no one choked on the climactic sprinkling of confetti from the eaves of the stage.
Battles played as manically energetic and consistent a set as ever, but – in a jammed tent, with the crowd constantly pushing their way in and out as stamina waxed and waned – it was a hard task to concentrate on the music rather than the elbows in the head and the danger of cigarette burns in the eyes. It was a similar story for Hot Chip the next night, although the big screen and speakers nearby pumped the over-packed tent gigs into the cooler night air.
My Bloody Valentine’s set was a real treat for both long-term fans and newbies experiencing their unnerving wall of sound for the first time. The opening strains of ‘Only Shallow’ followed by ‘When You Sleep’ were bound to get devotees very excited indeed, and ‘Soon’ couldn’t fail to raise the hairs on the back of the neck. However MBV’s vaunted sonic assault was never as overwhelming as it should have been by rights, possibly due to responsibly set sound levels. The underpinning melodics that make their electric squall so deliciously bittersweet were largely absent in the live setting: even ‘You Made Me Realise’ failed to really mesmerise.
The Kills’ seedy, seductive rock ‘n’ roll was Saturday’s highlight, with the sultry, cool-as-fuck and hot-as-hell stage presence of Alison Mosshart and the simmering rapport she enjoys with Jamie Hince perhaps explaining the ‘tension’ that’s supposed to exist between her and his bird Kate Moss. The Raconteurs followed with a tight and solid set that reaches its crescendo with the double-whammy of ‘Steady As She Goes’ and ‘Salute Your Solution’.
During the event, scheduling anomalies made for some head scratching: Spiritualized clashing with My Bloody Valentine? Justice on as early as 11pm when the party ain’t over ‘til 8am? And prices were a bit of a shocker too, at e7.50 for a vodka and coke (though the measures were generous) and food averaging e10 a pop. Also, strangely, it was hard to come across a Spanish accent, the crowd being mostly made up of British university students – lithe, middle-class, Topshopped beauties necking Red Bull and chomping MDMA in packs of 20 or more – making you feel like you were festivalling with the cast of Skins.
Thankfully though, the balmy nighttime air, two litre bottles of gin and tonic cleverly disguised as water and of course the multitude of top class bands made for a rockin’ time.