My RockNess Review

[pothead pixie]

Friday 11th June 2010

My tent pitched at the efest commoners camp in the Yellow campsite by 12.30pm, all in attendance was Gavin,Haley, Louise, Harry aka Disco_Fudge Paul, Kowalski, Poleski (not Polish guys by the way),Wee Steve and many others.

There was nice weather but cloud threatening enough and many including myself with our ipods assembled making the soundtrack for the weekend, a selection of sounds including Aphex Twin, the Bloody Beetroots, Boys Noize and one of my own choices Fensters (Dublin DJ) Breakology set from the Life Festival in Galway, Ireland from 2008.

Main Arena: Crystal Castles

The arena bars were chaos with no order or a queuing system to it, comprising bar staff who took your orders and separate till operators that made the waiting more time consuming. Most of the crew making for the Crystal Castles opening set on the main stage, although we missed half the set because of the bar situation. The Crystal Castes is a combination of dance beats, live drums and hard driving electro-funk, the lead singer Alice Glass is one live wire of a girl who screams demented punk over the cacophony of sound. Glass had more than a few sups of a bottle of JD during the gig and was taking many bouts of stage surfing the front rows of the audience, eventually annoying the festival security to an extent that it became a health and safety issue. This caused the bands power to be cut three or four times, the fourth time the power never returned. I enjoyed the brief tracks I heard having missed them at the Electric picnic in 2008.

Clash Arena: Booka Shade

Sauntered into the Clash next, looking at a duo behind a bank of keyboards, I got a sense that they were influenced by German Krautrock like Kraftwerk and Can. When I took a look at the stages laminate I realised I was looking at the German Electro House group Booka Shade which was a nice little discovery for me. Having missed them at the Electric Picnic last year it was good to catch them. Many tracks were featured from the new album More and some selections of the groups back catalogue. I was very impressed with the sound system in the Clash arena, a great sound of bass booms, Booka Shade is extremely talented and makes seriously kicking music.

Main Stage: Friendly Fires

On the way back to the campsite I caught a bit of the Friendly Fires set on the main stage which was not bad, this is the first time catching them live, quite catchy indie-pop.

Time for a break, something to eat and a kaboom express (coffee), eventually I found the crepe stall which had a proper espresso machine and quaffed an Americano and a nice crispy bacon roll from one of the Aberdeen Angus vans, having not ate since my liquid diet the night before in Inverness.

Main Stage: Fat Boy Slim

Back to the music again, I caught a bit of the Fat Boy Slim set and became transfixed with the focus on Iggy Pop who was on slow motion synced to Slims music, some of his set was familiar to the famous hits and some of the material was new, a great sound from the main stage sound system.

Clash arena: Pendulum

Went over to check out some of Pendulums set, the Australian group came across as a cross between the Prodigy and MGMT using a nice set of visuals on the back screen and an elaborate light show. The group give off a good energy combining elements of electro with indie and metal music.

Main stage: Fat Boy Slim

Caught the last bit of Slims set where he was going through a downbeat version of the Rockfeller Skank and culminating with a remix of Praise You which he also started his show with.

Arcadia Afterburner: Optimo Vs Subculture

Some great sounds coming from the Arcadia Afterburner courtesy of the Subclubs favourite Optimo vs Subculture which insured that many people were getting on down to the filthy beats, the Arcadia signature of fire and lights delighting all around.

Rizla Stage: Toddla T

Toddla T on the Rizla stage gave some good dub step and drum n bass sounds the area also being packed by ravers going absolutely mental. I didnt linger for a long as I was absolutely shattered.

Had an early night hitting the sack at 1.30 seeing that I could not really sleep the night before because of the excitement about going to the festival.

Saturday 12th June

Decided to check out a bit more of the arena with Gav and Haley in the early afternoon, coming across another crepe stall with the proper coffee machines and had a nice latte, after some more investigation we eventually located the pizza stall which made excellent pizzas and shared a pepperoni pizza, I found out that the same stall also does the Electric Picnic festival, so will be seeking this out in September.

Annie Macs Tent: Burns

The first music of the day for me was at the Annie Mac tent and a DJ called Burns who had only about 50 people around the front of the stage, the music being a kind of rocky techno, not a bad start to the Saturday by any means.

Went for drinks. discovered that you could get Barcardi Breezer, so had a few of them as I was not in the mood yet to go drinking beer in the early afternoon.

Main Stage: Alabama 3 4.20 pm

The first proper set I caught was that of Alabama 3 who were tearing through their first number on the main stage when we arrived at about 4ish. The full band was on stage and kudos again to the sound engineers as the main stage sound was fantastic with super ultra bass, especially when Woke Up this Morning started, many classics from their back catalogue was covered including Im Johnny Cash. This was the first time I had seen the band quite close on the stage, they certainly got the feet moving and were a great warm up for the ensuing festivities.

Clash Arena: The Dub Pistols

After a pint of Carling it was off with some of the efesters to the Clash tent to catch some of the Dub Pistols set. The Dub Pistols have had Terry Hall from the Specials singing with them in previous times, but the current singer T.K. Lawrence can more than hold his own wit the group singing ragga with ska and iree vital sounds. The groups sound is essentially ska but using rockier sound with a nice smattering of rock, electronics and horns. They played to a small crowd at the start so there was plenty of room to boogie about, but by mid-way through their set the tent eventually started to fill up a bit. I left before the last number as I wanted to eat and chill at the campsite in preparation for the Aphex Twin set at the Clash arena at 8.30 pm.

On the way to the Clash arena I looked to the main stage from the side where 2ManyDJs were holding a large crowd there with a repeated set from the last few years, one of the things that captivated me about their set was the trillions of bubbles generated by the bubble machine or was this confetti that another reviewer remarked at.

Clash Arena: Aphex Twin

At the Clash tent the excitement was impalpable for Aphex Twins set, many people including myself had never seen him live before. The music was a lot more subtle than his previous outings which I have heard from previous recordings from T in the Park and Oxegen 2008. the new material still uses some of the trademark drum n bass and gabba bits, but he was really using some nice esoteric sounds that created a nice balance to the whole thing. There was use of visuals such as the familiar Aphex Twin logo and psychedelic colours in the back screen projection that washed with his musique concrete. Then came the lasers, f**k me! bloody amazing which need a special mention alone. Pink, violet, spectrum, lime green, yellow, red and white stripe, yellow and blue striped lasers coupled with amazing spotlight colours that truly made this particular gig a momentous occasion. I was delighted that he revisited Selected Ambient Works 85 - 92 and the second track Tha, a musique concrete masterpiece that utilizes submarine sonar, heartbeats and bass analogue synthesizers, the underlying beat being industrial clanks that almost become the heartbeat and reminiscent to something quite like the early Tangerine Dream from the 1970s. I cannot wait for this new record of his to come out and will lap up these new tracks which got the full set treatment tonight. Another rambling into his back catalogue gave us the Fingerbib track from his Richard. D. James record, a visually and audially stunning set from the Aphex Twin.

Main Stage: Leftfield

This was one of my other highlights, the sound alone deserves a special mention, earth moving bass, amazing vocalists and a good chunk of Leftism to boot. One thing I worked out is that Leftfield are not just another dance band, their music incorporates many different styles, there is a love for dub reggae in their sound and they do as good a downbeat track as both Portishead and Massive Attack. Song of Life kicked off the proceedings in gargantuan style, having never saw them before but only on video clips they truly rocked the boat. Tess on vocal for the second track Original was a knock out, wrapped in a gorgeous silver catsuit she recreated the vocals of Tony Halliday effortlessly, the bass from this track created what felt like earth tremors. The visuals used were not amazing but they still were effective enough to be unique. I think on the track Afro Left which featured the bloke rapping in African was a pivotal moment for me, because it was quite unlike anything else on earth, fascinating. I cannot remember all of the tracks but I thought it was a perfect close to the main stage for Saturday night, especially with the final number Phat Planet, a dizzbuster of a track that just keeps phazing and phazing till yer an absolutely ecstatic lunatic. Looking forward to seeing them at the Electric Picnic.

Sunday 13th June

Campsite and frolics with efesters getting suitably in the mood for the arena, but mainly in shelter as there has been a fine rain for the last 10 hours. Crepe van for coffee and steak sandwich, the rain not as bad as I thought it sounds worse inside your tent.

Clash Arena: FartBarf or Rob Da Bank????

Myself Gav and Haley made for the Clash tent so that we could dance to keep warm and dry too, unsure who was on stage at the time, either Rob Da Bank or Gavin reckoned, FartBarf! Strange funky music, first track sounded like a ragga singer on helium and then some timely vintage reggae which was absolutely perfect for this moment in time, a Jamaican version of Floy Joy! This made up for the lack of reggae or a proper chill out area for that matter. But the set did seem like a Dee Jay playing his favourite selections rather than a DJ mixing, so I opt that it was Rob Da Bank.

Main stage: Blondie

Wandered over to the main stage where Blondie was ploughing through Atomic, he sound was actually atrocious for this gig although the band looked as tight as f**k on stage and Debbie Harry not looking too bad for 65 years of age, but! it was too late the dance bug had caught me and the mood for 1980s nostalgia waned.

At this stage is was possibly back to the campsite for some chill, the great thing with RockNess was the relative ease of reaching anywhere at the festival within 5 minutes, 15 minutes if you were zoobed!

Some drinks were consumed Barcardis and pints, everyone from the campsite seems to be edging toward the Clash Arena for some reason the time just after 7 in the evening.

Clash Arena: Hadouken

There was apparently a mix up with Hadouken who appeared an hour or so earlier than billed resulting in some of the efesters missing their set. I caught the last two numbers of their set and summed up that they were a spritely eccyed up pop/rock band with an electro edge, lively enough but not my thing really.

More drinks and starting to tingle!

Clash Arena: Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77

When this group started there was a few hundred of us around the front of the stage, about approximately 1 and half minutes into the build up of Warp the whole tent was a thriving mass pumped up by that first 1234 Screeeeeeeeeaaaaammmmmm! Frazzle and fhroooot! this group was one amazing buzz, they were not just amazing mixers and DJs with the most mind bending electronic sounds, they were also amazing musicians on guitar, drums, spiderman masks and boundless energy leaping about the stage like acrobats. In short they put on a dazzling display of a new music, banging techno heavy metal rock without the posey shit you get with normal heavy metal bands.

The Bloody Beetroots is one of these bands that you do not want to stop, so they are probably seriously bad for your health because you just cannot stop jumping. No doubt this group has caused numerous strokes for forty - fifty year olds who think they are teenagers like myself.

They are going to blow the Irish audience to smithereens at Electric Picnic in September.

Back to the campsite for some chilling, lingering occasionally by the Afterburner and soaking up the sounds of Derrick May, for a mainly Rock n Roll day there is still a reasonable amount of dance sounds pumping out.

Radio Soulwax Tent: Soulwax

Managed to catch the last few numbers of the live group version of 2ManyDJs, having grown a bit fed up with the latters repeat performance it was refreshing to actually see them as live muiscians, the stage show had incredible bright spotlights which almost blinded me but the music was really good electro funk, I hope the group Soulwax would do a gig at EP rather than their DJ version.

Afterburner: Aeroplane

The music was pretty funky and with great resounding bass that made the tshirt vibrate, but this was the second DJ to sample Cyndi Lauper I think ( Rob Da Bank earlier too), some of the music was fairly cheesy so I went a wandering towards the Clash Arena and Main stage.

Clash Arena: Dave Clarke

Not knowing much about this DJ and since I came to the festival in mind to check out the different artists in the dance scene, Clarke had some good banging techno keeping a hardcore audience occupied in the Clash Arena. But it came to the point that my eardrums was overloaded from numerous gigs during the day that the bass vibrations became quite irritating some times, so went out to the main stage to get a breather on the hill side.

Main stage: The Strokes

Not knowing much about the Strokes either I took in a few numbers, the Strokes have a good time feel of indie-pop-rock, Casablancas onstage patter was quite warming and he communicates well with his audience, a bit of timely rock to close the proceedings on the main stage, Ive know idea of any of their songs as they are one of these bands that has never played at the Electric Picnic, usually playing bigger fests like Coachella, T and Oxegen, but I enjoyed their basic heads down indie rock n roll.

Clash Aena: Dave Clarke

Decided to go back to Clarke for some more techno bombardment, this time at some point I saw Disco_Fudge running down into the centre of the front to jump about to Mr Clarke. Some in the audience suggested to me that this was old school techno, I got the impression that where Dave Clarke was coming from was not far off Aphex Twins influences, with some of the tracks sounding like the faster numbers on Aphex Twins / Polygon Window - Surfing on Sine Waves.

Fireworks display

Seemed to be more briefer than the video clips of old, but an nice end to the night.

Walking back up through the Arcadia Afterburner and the Rizla stage it seemed to be ominous with no sound bouncing off your cranium, so much for the two extra hours of entertainment promised as well as Sat and friday night too. Anyway was absolutely shattered and called it a day, conking out about 30 mins later in my tent, time possibly 1.30 am.

Edited June 21, 2010 by pothead pixie

[pothead pixie]

Completed at last, enjoy!

[Kowalski]

A great read, good to have met you mate!

[Disco_Fudge]

Friday 11th June 2010

Clash Aena: Dave Clarke

Decided to go back to Clarke for some more techno bombardment, this time at some point I saw Disco_Fudge running down into the centre of the front to jump about to Mr Clarke.

Edited June 21, 2010 by Disco_Fudge

[Poleski]

Awesome wee review man

[Window Licker]

Excellent Review.

You have a memory better than most Niall. Particularly liked the piece on Aphex Twin and Leftfield.

Great to have met you mate, hopefully have a Picnic meet in September and catch a few acts together.

[tweemo freak]

Good review, mate ! Also, i was a victim of Hadouken being on 2 HOURS EARLY! I was really looking foroward to them, i wandered into the tent after Twin Atlantic thinking that it was Rob Da Bank. I heard a voice sayin "We've had a mosh pit at every show!" and surprised 2 say the least. It got into the tent and couldn't see the stage from where i was standing, The i heard the start of M.A.D by Hadouken! and thought "Nice, he's playing Hadouken!"( I still couldn't see the stage.) Then i moved closer saw Hadouken!'s giutarist and the Hadouken stage backdrop and was so annoyed (but happy i was watching them.) So i missed the first part :angry: but what i saw was great. Again, well done on the review .