Wiley's no show makes the crowd moody on opening day of Wakestock

Wakestock 2013

Friday 12th to Sunday 14th July 2013
Penrhos, Pwllheli, Gwynedd, LL53 7HG, Wales MAP
£135 with camping, £110 without camping

Daily capacity: 15,000

After a very stressful day I could not think of a finer way to unwind than heading north to the Llyn peninsular for a nice relaxing weekend, watching a few bands and taking in some top quality wakeboard action, with Wakestock providing all I had needed to escape the world since 2011, I headed to the coast full of anticipation, with the weather forecast on my side nothing could stop me now.

Or so I thought, I managed to follow every tractor and caravan in north Wales adding an extra hour and a half onto my travel time, I finally arrived on site at about 8 o'clock, after running late we gave stopping at the supermarket to stock up on the weekends food a miss so we wouldn't miss any more bands, only to find out once we had paid the £20 quid to park onsite that we wouldn't be able to remove the car over the weekend without having to pay another £20 quid each time we returned!!

Within 5 minutes of arriving in the car park, and being pestered by people asking if we would carry beer in for them as they were too young and people trying to sell us poppers, a big fight broke out less than 20 yards away, between two gangs of young lads, was this to set the tone for the weekend?

Passing through the gates the staff were very meticulous checking all items being carried through, and lots of youngsters without adequate ID were being turned away much to their disgust, I quickly threw up my tent and made my way to the arena, on first reflection I noticed it had almost halved from last year.

Disappointingly they had chosen to remove the rail gap pool, meaning all wakeboarding was now off site, they also only had one tented stage on site, with both the main stages now in the same tent, and turned sideways on, from the start it was obvious that the event had been majorly scaled down.

I was starting to think that if there was anywhere near the numbers of punters from the 2 previous years it would be ridiculously over crowded in these tents, however this never came to pass as the numbers seemed ridiculously low from previous years on the Friday night.

After running late we entered the arena 5 minutes before Wiley was due on stage. As we walked into the tent the compere Goldierocks was on stage, "I'm very sorry but we have an announcement to make" sounded like very ominous first words! "Now we all know how temperamental Wiley can be, and I have to say the right now he is in Reading, so he won’t make it here for his set tonight!" Cue the very rowdy young crowd booing and turning round and marching back to the campsite.

Goldierocks did play a DJ set to cover the slot but the mass exodus saw most heading back to the bars or tents for another hours drinking. There were no drinks being allowed into the arena, and they were priced at £4.50 for a can of Tuborg or Somersby cider, and so the youngsters were voting with their feet. I decided to do the same, after the long drive a few ciders were a perfect remedy, an hour later the tent was again starting to fill up for the arrival of Bastille, a band riding a very rapid trajectory to the top this year. I thought they were quite entertaining, but were probably here a year too early. As one of the evening's two headlining acts, they had a long set which had to be filled, and resulted in too many covers in their set. When they did play their singles, the roof almost came off the tent, especially for 'Pompeii' which turned out to be a highlight of the weekend. They'd justified their place on the bill, and left the crowd singing the refrain for a full 10 minutes at the tops of their voices after the band had left the stage.

Magnetic Man were the last act on stage on the Friday, with the predominantly young crowd I was expecting the stage to be overrun, but it seemed only half full, a very poor attendance for what was a set to remember. Dropping the heaviest of beats I am sure the ground could be felt juddering to the bass drops miles and miles away, with Skream, Benga and Artwork on top form, they owned the stage with material old and new. A great way to start the weekend!

review by: Jamie Licence

photos by: Jamie Licence