Thursday overview (getting there)

Upon arriving in Barcelona I was frankly told by the ticket man at the local train station "no Benicassim, Benicassim no!", leading me to believe the town had either been wiped off the face of the planet by some unprecedented natural disaster, or this whole trip was part of an elaborate hoax to send me to the middle of nowhere for a festival that doesn’t actually exist.

After prying a bit further it became apparent that transport to the festival had been booked solid and my chances of getting a plane, boat, bus or space shuttle to Benicassim was minimal at best. I had been warned of this eventuality before hand but I hadn’t actually prepared for it, and was now faced with no transport to the festival, nowhere to stay, and little in the way of money.

My negligible organisation was supplemented only by a red-cross package sent up by my dearest mother, containing a Spanish phrase book published in 1982 (making it older than I am), a universal plug adaptor (which was going to be handy in a tent) and 3 pairs of boxers, which became my makeshift pillow for the weekend.

To make matters worse all the best sleeping spots at the station had already been nabbed. So I started looking at all the alternatives – hitchhiking – you never know what you’re going to get and don’t fancy ending up being kidnapped and trapped in a warehouse for 10 years being fed baby food and working as a sex slave. Swim? Didn’t even get my bronze swimming badge so it’ll be five minutes swimming and 30 seconds of drowning. Walk? By the time I get there I’ll have to walk back again.

In the end I managed to catch a train to the station after Benicassim (Castellon), and enjoyed first class as I went in through the wrong door, then caught a taxi from there to the festival site – not so difficult after all.

I arrived on site just as Bright Eyes started up, but I was so desperate to get my tent off my back that I left after two songs to find somewhere to pitch up. I returned to fight my way through the busy crowds to catch Los Albertos. They had mainly a Spanish following (you can tell because they can all actually dance), who seemed to love them. They weren’t the most engaging band to watch, especially for the neutral, but nevertheless the atmosphere made it a rather enjoyable set. I noticed that the stage lighting was pretty impressive, and remained so throughout the festival, with enough strobe lights to send a blind man epileptic.

Next on were Brazilian Girls, who weren’t from Brazil, weren’t all girls, and weren’t a dodgy South American porn website either. A mixture of experimental pop, electronica, and some traditional samba-style grooves, Brazilian Girls are a fairly unique outfit. Lead singer Sabina Sciubba caroons around the stage, weaving her extravagent dress (or is it a cape?) around her body in a playful manner, and singing songs as gracefully titled as ‘Sexy Assole’ and ‘Pussy’. Nice.


I didn’t have the stamina to stay up much longer and retired to my tent, zipping the tent up and climbing into my sleeping bag fully clothed. Which proved to be a bad idea, a very very bad idea.

Day two

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