Friday, July 20, 2007

Ciao Ciao, Baby!


It is early Friday afternoon as we sit and look back on a brilliant first night of Spain's best summer festie, FIB.
As we predicted, Iggy Pop did it again and invited the audience of Thursday night's FibStart to storm the Heineken Green Stage for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dance sing and jump around with the long-haired rocker himself. The security guards were apprehensive but, we are sure, more than prepared after Glastonbury and after Iggy yelled, Let them up, Asshole!, couldn't really do anything but let the Fibers climb the barriers and jump up with the Stooges. Getting them down again was another story as both girls and boys tried to snog Iggy's face off on the way down to the pit, much to the disgust of their (we thought) rather aggressive bodyguard. But then we are talking about Iggy Pop. The screens either side of the stage showed one excited fan taking a photo of himself with a grinning Iggy and then one girl shoved her tongue right down his throat. Nice. We both agreed that had we been closer we couldn't dream of a better way than starting the weekend than getting up there and joining in on the fun. It was just a little too far from the press stand...
Aldo Linares, Jonston and Mando Diao had welcomed the first FIB evening in with a mix of rock pop and indie tunes and the crowd were more than warmed up for the headlining act of the night. Iggy and the Stooges did a brilliant live set, as ever, their energetic, frenetic rock and brilliant jumping all over the place.
Being the fans of MTV's Johann Wald that we are, there was no way we were going to miss his FIB debut as a DJ in the Vueling Pista Pop tent, so we ran over to catch the end, just in time to boogie to a bit of Bloc Party with the MTV staff.
Vacaciones Diyeis took over with their happy 60s pop and we danced like mad things before heading off to talk to some of the crowd. We met some bananas (literally), a group in hawaiian skirts and some lovely people from Ireland (who wanted Lolita's digits as his girlfriend looked on unamused) and were hustled for "weed/pills/charlie?!!!" several times on the way round.
Saying that, the vibe in Benicassim this year is better than ever, the nicest people from all over Europe have come together to just have a good time and party, and seeing everyone lazing on the grass, chatting away, sitting in little groups or in huge possies of pals just makes you smile.
Dancing as we went, we headed back to the Green Stage for Bright Eyes and Los Planetas, but were really looking forward to the not-so-Brazilian Brazilian Girls. I swear Jesse Murphy was checking me out in the Photo Pit. Sabina Sciubba came out in a gold body suit and a wing-like costume, opening with Lazy Lover and filling the crowd with her beautiful voice.
We danced to Londoner DJ babe Jojo Le Freq on our own on the Press Stand before heading back home on our bikes to rest up for today.
We shall love you and leave you now, Antony and the Johnsons, The Rapture, Ok Go and the Klaxons await! More tomorrow
xxx
A&L

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