Monday, July 23, 2007

Best Audience Ever?

Saturday night fever was running high as we got to the festival yesterday.
We had spent the morning enjoying the annual Artists v. Press football match at the Sports Centre in Benicassim and a nice plate of Paella to go with it and found ourselves asking, Who is Gorka?, as the crowds went mad for him. He turned out to be press, of course! No offence, but the Artists tend to be pretty rubbish when it comes to football, having spent the entire day drinking by the pool in the renowned backstage area. Reknowned for its utter luxury and amazing atmosphere. Each yearwe tend to sneak in at the end of the weekend so we´ll keep you posted on that one.
On arrival we saw Cansei de Ser Sexy, the crazy brazilians, and got to the Vodafone FIB club tent to whistle along to the excellent "Young Folks" with Peter, Bjorn & John with an overflowing crowd, caught some happy vibes and ran back to the Green Stage to not miss a single moment of The Magic Numbers. Not the most elegant, good-looking or trendy band at the Festival but without a doubt the highlight of the weekend so far. Opening with Take A Chance, the die-hard Numbers fans at the front must have all lost their voices as they sang along at the top of their voices. We danced and jiggled the whole set through with our gorgeous friends Ralph and Mr M. who had driven up for the night and found their sweet vocals to be the perfect start to the evening, making us forget poor Albert Hammond Jr.'s bad luck with the power cut at the end of his set that plunged the whole recinto into darkness for just a little while.
The B-52s put on a fun show for all the over 50s in the audience, and we noticed people trying to have a bit of a dance but trying just a little bit too hard. It was time to see our idol Najwa Nimri and her band Najwajean. The artist/singer/actress memerized the crowd in a skin tight Chinese-style dress and as I climbed up on a speaker you could feel the emotion in her voice. Stamping her foot like a mad thing the people sang along with Ms Nimri, filling the Vodafone Fib Club with love and song.
Oops! Ralph had lost his shoe for a minute, but all was well and a lovely boy from Huddersfield with a black eye gave it back to us, along with a fistful of neon bracelets. Yay! We were eyeing them up the whole set and it was finally time for us to wave our wrists in the air and have them glow in the dark. You know, in case we had another power cut.
Over on the Green Stage, the Arctic Monkeys were starting up and pump it up tey did. Cool as anything, they sauntered out onto the stage as if it was their front room and struck up View From The Afternoon. We couldn´t have asked for a more appropiate song than Dancing Shoes as we jumped around in the crowd. As much as we could, of course, there was a delightful girl in white who insisted on putting her bum in our faces the whole time. Not to worry, nothing a bit of dancing with our elbows out wouldn't fix.
Desperate to hear Mardy Bum, we were more than happy with Fake Tales Of San Francisco and as they closed with Certain Romance it was a perfect end to the set. Turner and his boys, still prepubescent and spotty but soooo cute, left the stage proclaiming the audience was fantastic.
We spent a good while dancing to the indie and rock set of DJ Rojiblanco, another New Generation Artist brought to FIB by Vueling and spent the rest of the night before heading home to bed at dawn between the truly amazing Ellen Alien and the electric and energetic Lo-Fi-Fnk.
Still no sign of Hedi Slimane though he is still supposed to be around, maybe he'll be more visible tomorrow when Amy Winehouse and her huge as huge beehive grace the Fiberfib stage.

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