Wakestock is a festival of two halves

Wakestock 2012 review

By Jamie Licence | Published: Mon 9th Jul 2012

Wakestock 2012 - around the festival site
Photo credit: Jamie Licence

Wakestock 2012

Friday 6th to Sunday 8th July 2012
Pwllheli Inner Marina and Abersoch Beach, Abersoch, Pwllheli, Gwynedd, North Wales, Wales MAP
£125 with camping, £100 without camping
Daily capacity: 45,000

After a hard night of raving in the mud the night before, I didn't crawl out of the tent to early, but to my disbelief and joy when I did I was met by wall to wall blue skies, what a result, so down into Pwllheli for the marina based wakeboarding events, where the sun was bright and the crowds were out in numbers.

Here the festival differed to the main arena site, and there was a real fun family vibe, with lots of local families bringing picnics for the day to the marina side, with a hand full of DJs spinning tunes commentary keeping the crowd bouncing throughout the day, and all the sponsors on hand giving out free T-shirts and soft drinks. It was a real spectacle which I would urge anybody to go and see, with many people bringing their boats into the marina and firing up their own sound systems. The marina has a very unique atmosphere, there is a very thorough bus service ferrying the masses to and from the site to the wakeboarding events, I got back to the site and felt a bit frazzled so went for a sneaky hours sleep ready for the evening.

Andy Carr
I entered the arena at about 6, and went straight for the open air south stage, where there was 2 hours of Liverpool's finest on display, with Cabos bar resident Andy Carr drawing the largest crowd on site slamming out the dub breaks for the first hour of the day, the site is very quiet as I walked past the other stages there were about 20 people in each for the first acts on, and there were a few hundred out at the South Stage, with the sun shining the masses were getting their drinks down them out on the campsite, and they really were missing a treat.

Following on from Andy were fellow Liverpool lads Dash & Ben Proudlove, who blew a hole in Wakestock, with their filthy bass heavy set full of gigantic drops they gave the people what they came for, I caught these guys last year on the marina sound system, and they more than delivered stepping up onto main stage duties, keep your eyes out for these lads on line-ups.

Simplex
Simplex was next up on duty, and yet again the bookers for this stage had it spot on, with the crowd just getting larger and larger, and the dipping sun being a huge asset for this stage, I had been recommended to check out Breakage earlier in the day. So, I wandered over to the East stage to see their set. Breakage came on stage to a big reception, and when they fired into their set, the mosh pits started, banging round to the dubstep beats, it all got a bit to rowdy and ended up with a huge brawl between two groups of teenage lads who all looked off their faces. Unfortunately this vibe was prominent across the two main stages all weekend, and I must say it kind of put me off getting too near the front of the stage as I couldn't be bothered with the hassle, I decided to go outside, watch the rail gap event in the open air and get some fresh air.

The crowd was coming in thick and fast all staggering in to catch the last three acts again, and like clockwork the atmosphere seemed to kick in. As I usually do, I watched ten minutes here and there for the rest of the night. Zane Lowe came on stage to a huge reception, and messed up the first two mixes of his set, but the crowd were to busy bouncing to notice.

I went outside the opposite East stage and had a listen to DJ Fresh live whilst indulging in a festival favourite staple of ostrich burger with garlic stilton sauce, yum yum. With the sky still bright, I was able to sit out side the main stage and listen to Dizzee Rascal's set. I could see through the side of the tent that it was going crazy inside, with a hit heavy set Dizzee almost blew the roof clear off the tent, using his bass to command the masses, ending on mega hit 'Bonkers'. There couldn't have been a more appropriate track to sum up the majority of the crowd. The crowd left chanting it all the way back to the campsite.

around the festival site
review by: Jamie Licence

photos by: Jamie Licence


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