Benicassim 2009

Benicassim Festival turned out to be rather good – even if half of Friday night got cancelled.  On the whole though, another excellent festival.

Initially I was worried about going alone but my ‘worries’ were unfounded. There wasn’t one bit of it where I was bored off my head or wished I was elsewhere.  I think I needed that break away – I feel ten times better than before, but as per normal after a holiday, I don’t want to be here.

My hotel was in the centre of town, (cheap, basic and clean) right on the beach – perfect location -  I didn’t need to go anywhere else.  My mates accommodation however turned out to be miles away (an hours walk at least and just a hassle to get to bus wise).  So most of the daytime I spent on my own or joining other groups of people – then meeting up with the others at the festival site.

Music wise, I wasn’t too impressed with Oasis, the sound was shite again – even though we were right in front of the sound stage.  They had two power cuts but the crowd just carried on singing until the end of the songs.  Glasvegas were alright again though.

However on Friday the main stage was cancelled.  Paul Weller came on about 9.30pm, but he had to go off about 10pm because of a fire next to the site.  There was also madly strong winds blowing bits of the stage apart since the start and now causing problems with the fire – it’s a good job the wind was blowing the fire away from the festival site though.  So we waited and waited, announcement after announcement until about 1am they pulled the plug and said that no one would be playing that night.  So, no Weller, no Maximo Park, no Kings of Leon – was a bit gutted about missing Kings of Leon but wasn’t bothered about anyone else.  By that point the boredom had driven me to drink (honest) so I wasn’t too bothered and we still had a good night.  Even if I did manage to fall over on the way home – managing a full forward ‘gymnastic’ roll down a ditch – I now have war wounds.  More importantly I managed to not spill all of my drink for the walk home.  Battered and bruised…but I saved the important stuff!

On Saturday Lily Allen had pulled out, so Maximo Park played instead – they were shite to be honest.  Elbow, Franz Ferdinand and 2ManyDJ’s played well into the early hours – a brilliant night.  Only surpassed by The Killers on Sunday when I managed to get about 10/20 people from the front – as close as I’ve ever been at a gig/festival and they were definitely my highlight.

Like a typically Englishman abroad, I’ve managed to come back shredding more skin than a snake.  I blame a certain young lady for laying down next to me on the beach and taking her top off just as I was getting ready to leave…well what’s a man to do?  I know, you’d think I hadn’t seen a pair before, but it has been a while and I did seem to have prime position for naked ladies.  My small talk failed that time and I may have burnt myself, but it seemed a shame to move. Typically male!

Added to my burning skin dilemma I’d been applying sun lotion and after-sun lotion like a good boy everyday.  It was only when it got to Sunday when I realised my hands were looking a bit brown and dirty (even after washing), that I thought something was amiss.  Upon further inspection, the after-sun lotion was after-sun ‘with a hint of self-tan’. What the fuck is all that about?  What stupid bastard invented that?  Pointless.  Go in the sun all day THEN apply ‘self-tan’…why? So, thanks to that genius, I’ve got bits of blotchy after-sun ‘self-fucking-tan’ over me.  Between the shredding skin and white and tanned patches I’m currently doing a great lookalikey of a cow.  Plus, I’m the only person in the world right now with tanned palms.

My mates – and their mates – are already making plans to go back again next year.  I’m not sure I’d go back again in a hurry to be honest.  I’ve been twice now and whilst it is brilliant  (I’d recommend it to anyone), I think if I was going to a European festival again, I’d just rather go and spread my wings a little to a different one.  Been there, done that, bought the t-shirts.

Muchas gracias Benicassim.

Done so much but achieved so little

Still not having much luck on the apartment front.  Hotels, hostels and most villa’s are full or too expensive.  I must’ve sent about 50 email enquires off to all kinds of weird and wonderful people and only received a handful of replies back.  Barstweards.

But, in my extensive searching, I have found 2/3 possibilities and had replies. Two of them are smaller apartments/villas but it’s on the tip of our budget.  One of them looks like it has some kind of battered battery/electric operated toilet roll dispenser.  How exciting is that!

Two other places told me they can’t give me a price until they open again on 9th Feb.  As nobody else is doing anything remotely as urgent to find something, it looks like we’ll I will hold out and see what prices they come up with then make a decision.

I did phone a couple of places too; given I struggle communicating in English my Spanish lingo skills were a joy to behold (I did say we were clutching at straws):

Spanish Person: “Hola, blah blah blah blah (something in Spanish)”

Me: (eerrrrr)….”Hola………..english?”

Spanish Person: “Si, Yes”

Me: (phew!)….

Then what followed was a 1 minute broken english conversation of which only Basil Fawlty would be proud of.  I did say gracias and adiós at the end though!  As an aside to that, last time I went I was mistaken for being Spanish by a few bar staff/waiters after ordering rounds of drinks.  

High five for me and my foreign language skills.  

So, despite numerous efforts, I’m not really any further on with any kind of holiday booking whatsoever.  We’ll be walking there and sleeping in bus shelters at this rate.

Glastonbury Festival

I’m off to Glastonbury in a bit.  This will be the 5th time I’ve been and all but one (in 2003) have been a complete mud bath.  So far the weather forecast looks ‘ok’ – and definately not as wet/muddy as previous years.  Just having somewhere to plonk your arse is a help.  Standing up for 12 hours a day for 4/5 days does you no good at all.

There aren’t too many bands I want to see this year compared to previous years.  I only really want to see Kings of Leon, Crowded House and Alabama 3 (who are on about 3 times over the weekend) so hopefully I’ll see them at least once.   Depending on where I am on the site I may even watch Jay-Z, even though I’m not into that music at all.  I’ll never go and watch him off my own back and I have a feeling he will put on a good show for Glastonbury after all the fuss.

Anywhos, a 5 day festival and it’s many many delights await me.

Whooo Hoooo!