rock ness 2009

[bumper31]

Positives:

Great choice of food and drink

Line up........Spoilt for choice.....Orbital, Prodigy, Annie Mac, Alabama 3....all top drawer.

I am quickly heading towards middle age, but being in the mess at the Prodigy as they killed it, made me feel 18!!!!

And a special mention to the Cuban Brothers.....I left Chase and Status after getting a little bored and stumbled across them......and boy, was I glad I did........absolutely un-fooking-believable....I actually think I peed meself a little.....What has been seen.....cannot be unseen

And this is what fests are all about....

Negatives:

The VIP area was in the arse end of nowhere.......

There were only a few toilets in the VIP area, that although were alright, they soon got messy and had queues. This would make me think twice about paying the extra 30 dabs in the future.

The biggest negative though.....for me......was the weak Friday, I know the Flaming Lips are a big draw, and I even own a copy of Yoshimi......but I was bored Friday, the atmosphere wasn't there, the music wasn't there.....I would also think twice in future before I buy a Friday ticket again.

Finally, and this isn't Rockness' fault, just a general moan and observation that adolescent men seem to want to flail and bounce and act like complete tw*ts when drunk or whatever!!! I lost me Ray Bans to some such W**KER, now they were well used so no great loss but irritating none the less....so please if you are one of those young or maybe slightly older gentlemen who like to enjoy yerselves in such manner............

KEEP THE F**K AWAY FROM ME!!!!

Apart from that....as long as the standard of bookings are similar or better than last year......in the words of the Governator......"I'll be back"

Loves and Hugs........

[Paul ™]

1. VIP camping was a superb idea so glad I upgraded, it was well worth it, especially on Sunday when we could chill in the VIP food area.

[Jeebs]

No offence to either of you but why bother upgrading?

The VIP camping area had 5 toilets I could see with huge queues all the time, where as the Not so VIP camping in Purple were clean and no queues.

The VIP Bar/Food are is best kept out the way. Just cause you pay an extra £20-30 it doesn't actually make you Very Important

And from what I seen of the VIP Camping it looked dull and boring, people actually sitting with wine glasses, picnic rugs and hampers.. ermm get a grip

[Paul ™]

aye, poshos should drink from the bag.

[ayrshirechick]

First time at Rockness and loved it!!

Love how everything is so close together... none of this waking for miles nonsence!! Great atmosphere, everyone we spoke to was fantastic!!

Such a great choice of music, we went a wander on friday night and ended up in the clash tent because we heard Flower of Scotland, and it was a ceilidh band and they had the whole place jumping... its great how scottish people react to that sort of music, a wee jig was bloody brill! Also loved Dizee and Prodigy!

Would def come back, although get there a tad earlier as we had to hunt for a camp space which was not fun with shit loads of stuff...

Infact on that note... It was said on the website you could only bring drink in your first trip? So we did that and was a long and tiring walk lol, but i then seen people coming back in with drink later so they were obv allowed through!!

But apart from that, we were very happy (and burnt) campers

[yvonneB]

Thought all was excellent this year and I am actually happy I didnt upgrade to VIP for camping as by luck we were all knackered trying to bring all our stuff in 1 go as we were told we couldnt go back to our car , anyway we had to do it in relays to get our stuff in and then tried to carry it all in 1 go which meant we struggled to walk far! We ended up just camping in 1st place we could which was in the red area. We got a great spot and nice people around us. Bit of a walk to the arena but was fine. We probably had the cleanest toilets next to the camper vans and seen as the only reason I ccould see for upgrading to VIP for would be the toilets, we didnt need to.

Also happy we didnt take our tents to yellow area as apart from being packed, seen many tents getting wrecked by idiots throwing things down the hill to tents near the bottom.

I agree with security being a bit ott with taking bottles in to the arena, as I tried to take bottle of water in and couldnt.

Band wise missed Dizzee on sat night due to losing track of time, seen bit of Orbital which sounded amazing and wish I had seen it all. Highlights for me were DJ Yoda, Placebo & The Prodigy. Complete Stone Roses were great too and unfortunately for the hassle and time it took to get in on Sat morning we missed our own local band the Naked Strangers

Food wise great choice and had a lovely spicy chicken wrap and stovies. downside was the breakfast vans in camp ste an uncooked square sausage on a roll and a portion of chips which consisted of about 12 luke warm chips all for £5.50 was crap all got binned after a mouthful but suppose should have taken it back.

Toilets in arena were far far better than ever before so well done for that.

Well done to Jim, Robert and co was well organised and great line up and looking forward to next year already

Condolences to family of the young man who died.

Edited June 15, 2009 by yvonneB

[bumper31]

No offence to either of you but why bother upgrading?

The VIP camping area had 5 toilets I could see with huge queues all the time, where as the Not so VIP camping in Purple were clean and no queues.

The VIP Bar/Food are is best kept out the way. Just cause you pay an extra £20-30 it doesn't actually make you Very Important

And from what I seen of the VIP Camping it looked dull and boring, people actually sitting with wine glasses, picnic rugs and hampers.. ermm get a grip

[Hebn2themix]

I had a gr8 time!!!!

Soulwax were simply unbelievable!!!! made my weekend. Basement Jaxx were brilliant and also Erol Alkan ( I was only in the tent for the last 20mins coz i forgt he was on) but WOW!! plz get him again.

Have to say the only down point 4 me was my friend who seemed to refuse to dance to anything all weekend and moan! As for the festival itself, its just gets better and better and better!!

[Chemical_Bex]

I was a little bit gutted at the food choices. Didn't see any veggie stalls at all, which i thought was kinda weird for a festival.

As a vegan, i had to live off the fizzy laces i brought for the weekend. Last year there was an amazing vegan/veggie stall. Really dissapointed it wasnt there this weekend.

Otherwise the rest of the weekend was absolutely great, (apart for the w*nkers who camped on top of our tents near enough and broke all of them). The toilets were still fab for a fest, but not as good as last year, i dont think anything can live up those!

SoCo social tent was amazing, and Rizla looked pretty banging!

Amazing weekend

[gamma911]

I ccould see for upgrading to VIP for would be the toilets, we didnt need to.

Also happy we didnt take our tents to yellow area as apart from being packed, seen many tents getting wrecked by idiots throwing things down the hill to tents near the bottom.

[Iain333]

Also I liked the updates on the screen in the campsite, made you feel welcome.

[Paul ™]

That's exactly why I upgraded. Left all my stuff in the tent, beers outside, and everything was there in exactly the same spot as before.

Need I say more?

[dirty flow]

firstly critisisms...

i'd been buying water from the food stalls and the icecream vans mainly, no problems there, BUT the first time i bought water from an official bar they gave me 2 bottles and wouldnt give me the tops! i explained i didint want them right there and then politely asked for my money back to which another of the bar staff promptly went 'look no refunds pal..NEXT!!!!!'

only other thing was the sound in the bollywood tent when it was rammed. get speakers up the back too!

2 tiny daft critisisms over the whole weekend. rest was an absolute belter. great crowd, great lineup and fantastic location. even the weather wasnt too bad.

didnt see a great deal on the saturday but..

orbital were fantastic, glad i finally got to see them. opening with lush was brilliant. heaven is a place on earth!!

den haan were brilliant as well ( i love that rizal bit, for being outside the soundsystem was spot on) love my disco, so spent about 2 hours bopping around in there

the ed banger allstars with annie mac was a quality wee dj tag team thing. thought i'd kinda got bored with ed banger stuff but i love the way they all seem to be having such a good time, wheather its in front of thousands of people or a handfull of people.

finnished off in the rizla bit seeing i'm not sure who, but he was quality. the guy on before gruff rhys, whoever he was. saw a bit of gruff and mylo but i was fairly gone by then

sunday

everything i wanted to see seemed to be on at the same time so i spent a lot of time seeing bits of everything here and there. highlights were jon carter- saw most of his set, loved the reggae in the middle, he also looked absolutely bollocksed, which was confirmed on speaking to him later, but his mixing was spot on. justin robertson's mid afternoon set was cracking as well, hadnt seen him in ages, glad to see he's still got it. saw first 40 minutes of the prodigy, seen em tons of times and they they never dissapoint, then boosted up for the last hour of andrew weatherall, who i'm glad to see has grown his big tache back. also jon carter bopping around in there as well.

managed to catch bits of soulwax, james murphy and pat mahonney, sinden, chase and status (why were they only on for half an hour?), optimo, jackmaster, telford, todla t, riton and all of rob da bank. rob was a touch heavy on the party hits for the younger folks but it was all good.

thanks very much and keep up the good work

edit. the seriously good cheese toasties were f**king amazing. cant belive i only discovered them last night at 10!!!

Edited June 15, 2009 by dirty flow

[Kowalski]

edit. the seriously good cheese toasties were f**king amazing. cant belive i only discovered them last night at 10!!!

[sandrewbull]

I had an awesome weekend overall!!!

Top 10 Highlights:

1) The Prodigy

2) Tommy Sparks

3) Theatre Fall

4) Filthy Dukes

5) Placebo

6) MONSTER Battle Field

7) Placebo Signing

Campsite banter

9) Tommy Reilly

10) Blood Red Shoes( I wish i was someone better)

but biggest problems were:

1) Placebo's set didnt have nacy boy or Pure Morining.(i know this isnt the organisers fault)

2) Biffy Clyro, Placebo and Erol Alkan all clashed!!! These were 3 of my top 5 acts to see, so i missed Erol Alkan and Biffy.

3) People passing out at the front of Prodigy.

[blackg1000]

Like many of us done in main campsite, so you think that arseholes only camp in the main campsite?

[Alpha Kenny 1]

Did anyone see Frightened Rabbit? What did they think?

[Da_J_Doc-~]

Well folks, i had an ace time, Sunday started not so well when the travelodge had no record of my booking so we had to give HI Express £140 for a couple of rooms, that aside the festival was excellent, highlight for me was the Prodigy, watched the first 30-40 mins to the left of the stage in front of the speakers then the rest up on the hill which was jumping (Smack my bitch up!!!!!!!) with folks just going for it.

Will be back next year.

[scottiejmac]

First time at Rockness was... Bonkers. (sorry) Roadworks were absolutely brutal. f**k you A9... left at 1.30 today and our bus got back to Greenock at 8.

Managed to see (snippets of some) : Killer Kitsch, The Flaming Lips, Annie Mac, Crookers, Dizzee, Basement Jaxx, Mylo, Mehdi, Busy P, Sinden, The Whip, Pendulum, Optimo, Biffy, Soulwax, Prodigy, LCD Soundsystem, Chase & Status, Toddla T.

Biffy & Toddla were highlights for me. Toddla T in the Rizla was soooo good. I'd love to see the photos from that.

Managed to get into the 'VIP' area because my mate was playing in the tent. I'm so happy i didn't pay the extra £30 for a ticket. It wasn't anything special. There was plenty of people walking about with VIP wristbands on as well but there wasn't much point at the end of the day. I'm going to become an artist for next year for use of the private toilets behind the Bollywood tent they sounded fantastic haha. A lot of people had artist wrist bands actually. Damn all you blaggers.

Toilets all in all were pretty damn good though. Smell of sick was sometimes unbareable(sp.) but after the first night it got better. The soco tent was also a highlight for me especially at night. + it was a good laugh when those 2 girls came on during Sinden and started chucking out all sorts of weird gear. Wish it was open on Sunday after midnight though so we could have partied for a bit longer.

Brilliant festival Jim. On behalf of the 50 of us who hired a bus from Greenock... cheers.

[Thing 2]

Hi jim ,

i think its great how your coming looking for the feedback rather than sitting back and hoping no one complains. This sets you apart from many other festivals who after this year will just go straight into organising next years without as much consideration of the success of this years.

This was my first rockness and i have to say its stood out head and shoulders above the other festivals ive been to, and the english guys i camped next to were amazed at the atmosphere when compared to festivals theyve been to.

I would like to particulary point out the toilets were kept well, the food was resonably priced and there was a good level of campsite security. I think your crowd is very good, keeping away the idiots of the day i would say is the reason rockness has such a great atmosphere.

I thought the entertainment in the campsite was rather average ( the monster and carling places ) when compared to campsite entertainement at other festivals (e.g the duracell tent at T) , the bollywood arena and the soco were brilliant and were where we spent most of the time at night but not been able to take in drinks made it exspensive. I understand licensing restrictions but possibly abit more life in the campsite entertainment would make the difference and give the atmosphere i thought the beer amnesty and monster lacked.

But I will definetly be returning as this is the friendliest and most enjoyable festival ive been to. I also thought your speech after the prodigy to close gave it a more personal touch, it showed that rockness is a labour of love, rather than a corporate money machine.

[Nicc501]

I absolutely love rockness, it's small enough to find your friends if you get lost and large enough for enough to do and see.

Highlights: Prodigy (i've never jumped so much!), Scratch Perverts (nothing like a bit of drum n bass at 4 in the afternoon!), Pendulum (ditto), Flaming Lips, Alex Metric (so good, dunno why it was so quiet!)

This year the cash bar system rocked, got drinks straight away each time. I also really liked the campsites, they were well policed (without being intrusive) and plenty of water spots.

A couple of wee issues though - I do agree about the Nazis on the door, why can't I take an empty bottle in to get water? Also the water bar wouldn't let us have caps on our water bottles, which is ridiculous as the ice cream vans DID! I also walked out of the arena with two (TWO! - not even a whole one!) slices of pizza and some clever-dick steward says 'you'll get fat if you eat all that'. They should be reminded that we've paid a lot of money to be there and are there to enjoy ourselves.

Also supply of vegetarian food wasn't amazing. I could choose between chips or margarita pizza. Other festivals have nachos, enchiladas and falafel stands.

Other than my food and drink issues, the entire thing was amazing and how lucky were we with the weather!? My boyfriend came to rockness for the first time and loved it. We'll definitely be back next year!

I was standing behind James Smith when he became ill at Sneaky Sound System on sat - i did wonder whether he was ok and I'm very sad to find out he died. I hope his family can take comfort in that they gave him the freedom to go to festivals and enjoy himself.

[Guy Rope Tripper]

Did anyone see Frightened Rabbit? What did they think?

[smutchie]

Jim...congrats on a great festival!

Pros - CROOKERS! Cash bars, Thai food stall, weather, toilets, carling amnesty (excellent), Erol Alkan blew me away, Prodigy were absolutely amazing, the atmosphere, felt safe with the amount of police going about too.

Cons (sorry!) - £8 for a pack of 20 cigarettes in the campsite was completely ridiculous, no EMPTY water bottles in the main arena yet people could take in Camelpaks no bother. The change in line up wasn't advertised as well as it could have been but luckily Tommy was keeping us up to date in the EFest camp. The smell as we walked from Purple campsite to the car park yesterday morning was awful, thought I was going to be sick, but this can't be helped!

An amazing weekend and i'll definitely be back

Keep up the good work!

I'm so sorry for James Smith's family.

[Budda]

Hi Jim,

1st time at Rockness and thought it was Superb!!!

Organisation was excellent, left Cumbernauld in the campervan at 11pm to avoid the traffic on the A9 got to Rockness at 2am expecting to sit outside until 10 the next morning but was checked in and on site that night.

Liked the feel of the festival, totally chillaxed and only seen a couple of fights....well, more like wee neds pushing each other.

Toilets where spotless and cleaned every morning, cash bar was a winner and never waited more than a couple of mintues for a drink.

Highlights for me The Jaxx, Soulwax, Alkan, Prodigy and many more.

See you next year, Amigos!!!

[jamjar602]

Whole weekend for me was just amazing, better than last year personally (bigger group I went with), but main highlights:

David Guetta in the rain

Basement jaxx

Biffy

Prodigy

Having my tiny mate on my shoulders throughout BJ, Biffy and prodigy so she could see them and we got on the big screen loads for it

Ceilidh tent all friday night

The amazing tan iv got from sunday!

only a couple of cons i think, the high price of a bottle of water from the bars/stalls (although i got a free bottle from lost and found after prodigy, cheers for those guys!) and the neds who set a tent on fire and told the police it was us on monday morning, little c**ts were on our bus back to ayr aswell! i seriously hope they get whats coming to them, tents and fire (from experience) aren't something that go well together!

I'm also still buzzing!