Sunday. Last day of FIB.

Last day of FIB! Oh no! Its always a sad day for us, we always arrive slightly tired and slightly down...And this year, slightly angry. Having overslept, and then realising we had no food, and Mr.M and Ralph had dissapeared down to the beach without waking us up, slightly hungover from the crazy night before, and then realising we had missed The Pipettes, one of the bands, i Lolita, had been deseperate to see, we got on our bikes, looking quite amazing for the last day, I have to say and got there just in time to catch the end of Calexico, in the Fiberfib.com tent and join the crowds for Amy Winehouse. There was a rumour she wasn't going to turn up, which would have been a bummer seeing as Muse had arrived early to catch her set and most of the English fibers we had spoken to, were more than excited about seeing her.On she walked, with her beehive hair, mini-mini shorts, and about a million band members, and broke into song. Singing most of our favorites, the crowd warmed up when she started to sing Sun goes down, and everyone went mad when she sang Rehab. It goes without saying that she has an amazing voice, but it wasn't the most exciting concert, if she hadn't of had her two amazing black backing singers that danced in sequence during the whole hour, and her 6+ band members that lit up the stage, being so minute, and so shy, Im not sure what the concert would have been like. She closed with Valerie by The Zutons, doing a fantastic cover, whispered BYE! into the microphone and then fled off stage. Not to be seen again. Bizarre. We then ran to catch a bit of Patrick Wolf, who Ralph had overly eager to see. A crazy ginger man, wearing scottish shorts and a strange red strap with tassles round himself. Energetic crazy punk rock was what he and his violinist and cellist (who didn't stop laughing at Patrick during the whole time} offered us, and the crowd loved him.
Suddenly realising we were quite hungry, the boys went off to get some kebabs and beers, and we perched in the Red bull chill out area, to watch Matthew Dear - Big hands LIVE on the Fiberfib.com screens outside the tent whilst we munched on our first and last FIB kebabs! Mr.M being the man he is, decided that after dinner we should have a quick boogie in the Silent disco, so that we did. Putting on our headphones and tuning in to one of the two dj's on at that time, we danced like crazy people, untill a group of girls and boys walked in with t-shirts and carboards cut outs of a monkey.A monkey? Why? ''Simian!!!'' They all screamed, insisting they had their photos taking with each one of us, and then a group pic. And then making us promise that we wouldn't miss Simians set, and kissing and monkey hugging us all. We ran to the Fiberfib.com tent to catch the beguinning of Simian, stars of last summers big hit 'We are your friends' with Justice, great electro-house with a fantastic crowd and vibe. We danced a bit, tried dragging Mr. M away from there to try and get a good place for Muse who Anita and I were super excited to see! But being the electro king he is, he decided to stay with the lovely boys that had given us our neon bracelets last year, boogying. Fair enough. Back at the green stage, we pushed and shoved our ways through to the front, Ralph being careful, after having got into quite a nasty fight at the Artic monkeys, with a nasty nasty little girl who had decided she needed 6metres of space, just for her. The Muse crowd were slightly nicer, letting us through once seeing our Press Passes, its amazing what a little photo id card can do, and found ourselves a nice place at the front. And what an AMAZING concert. Well worth the pushing and shoving. They sang songs from the previous and newer albums, but the highlight was Starlight, not once person in the crowd, wasn't jumping up and down and singing. And when they did their encore, they released huge white balloons full of red confetti that flew through the air to then be popped by lighters, and fill the air with red and white confetti snow! What an end to an amazing concert.
We then ran to catch Armand Van Helden, who was quite a hotty. And spent an hour or more, we lost track of time, dancing with some VIPS that had huge cardboard ears that they would hold up everytime they were impressed by Armand. We didn't catch his famous My My My, much to our disgust, but we didnt catch jump around jump around jump up jump up and get doooown! Probably the best DJ in the whole universe, we would have stayed all week. And such a sweetie, smiling and dancing to his own music. Being 4am by this point, we decided it was time to make tracks homewards. Holding back the tears we did one more round of the FIB, catching a bit of Scream, in the Vueling tent, who had us screaming as he played every good old skool pop song that youv'e ever loved, and then took ourselves down to catch a bit of UNKLE LIVE on the green stage. Pretty amazing, multiple men, Djs, guitars, drums, vocals. A strange but fabby mix of electro, rock, indie...All in one. We stayed a bit, decided we would have loved to have catched it all, but we cant do everything. And walked through the press tent once more. Through the press doors. Onto our bikes. And down the dirt tracks, past the slightly smelly fibers for the last time until next year.
FIB is over. And it's been the best ever.
Thankyou.

L and A.
xxx

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.

Fib Benicassim starts on 19 July!

Yes, it's that time again!
Spain's answer to Glastonbury, without the rain and the mud, the wonderful Heineken Fib Music Festival at the seaside resort of Benicassim. Bigger than ever, with yet another stage, Sponsored by Vueling, the new budget airline, this year's Fib promises to be the best ever!
I am Anita Darling and I'll be there from start to finish, with my good friend Lolita Devine (it's my fifth Fib and Lolita's third already!) to bring you all the news, reviews, gossip, interviews, photos and a podcast or two!
It will all be here and on thisisvalencia.com
Fib officially starts on 20th July but get there early, on the 19th and you'll catch Fibstart - a great bill headlined by the legendary Iggy and the Stooges, and featuring, amongst a host of others, Bright Eyes, Los Planetas, Mando Deao.
The rest of the fest has great names almost too numerous to mention but here's a few for you Devo, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, the B52's, Antony and the Johnsons, Kings of Leon, Amy Winehouse, Rufus Wainwright- well just take a look at the poster, you'll get our drift.
So if you can't be there, be there with Anita and Lolita, you can be assured of a great time and quite a few surprises...