It’s been too long a time since I last posted, but sometimes life gets in the way. Still, I have spent the month seeing some truly incredible music and so now I return to the blog bursting with new, fresh things to say. Which, I think, excuses my absence sufficiently.
First.
FLBC returned to Berlin. God, how FLBC love Berlin. That city positively breathes minimalist house. After our Goodbye to Berlin and on our subsequent tour of Central/Eastern Europe we missed and craved the guarantee of good music that Berlin offers. Restaurants, bars, cafes- everywhere oozes this cool and chilled out vibe where life and music go hand in hand, building this city right out of it’s buildings into the musical stratosphere. Berlin dances through the next night…
Lets not fight it, the best example is Berlin through and through and through. Booka Shade.
Second.
FLBC wasn’t finished just yet. With our backpacks weighing heavy on our backs we ventured the two hours to Ferropolis, near Leipzig. Melt! awaited us. The line up had been what got me through the hellish exam period. We’d heard good things; expectations were sky high. I can’t describe exactly how it becomes that Melt! is the most beautiful place on earth for three days, but it certainly does.
The festival is set in a disused steel mine, where the now unused pit has been turned into a lake surround by a beach. The rusted machinery, most of the year a museum of the steel industry, is adorned with disco balls, lights and flames. Aesthetically alone, it must be one of the best festivals on earth. The sunrise through the metal-scape onto the festival made FLBC stop in our two-step.
Who could be surround by such sites and not be lovely? No-one. After years of Reading Festival I was more than prepared to have to fight my way through idiots to see the music I really cared about. Although the locals we spoke to, and a keen ear, informed us that most people weren’t German, everyone was high off the vibe and almost everyone was there for the music. We met so many great people and spent evenings dancing around and on the shoulders of strangers that I am now almost convinced European fetsival EN MASSSE are just better, more chilled out, less try hard, less cororate than festivals on these fair shores. I am biased, prehaps, by growing up in Reading and therefore year after year of muddy Reading with its steadily degenerating line-up and horrible crowds. Melt! was such a breath of fresh air.
And all that, and I still haven’t mentioned the music. Oh the music, the music, the music!
After we worked out the shuttle bus from the camp site and got our bearings on site, our first artist was Jamie Woon, playing on the gorgeous stage on the beach with the sea as a backdrop. His set was excellent, better than I expected and his vocal version of Spirits is even better in real life than on Youtube! The evening that followed was, musically, one of the best of my life.
A highlight set , of course, was Gold Panda. I go as far as to say I don’t mind having missed Robyn for him. ‘You’ quickly became a favorite song and, although I have liked, not loved, his recorded stuff, live he is incredible. A force of nature.
A close second of my favorites takes the joint form of SBTRKT and Azari & III. SBTRKTs set was good, as good as the album leads you to expect. Seeing ‘Wildfire’ live made me intensely happy. The duo work perfectly together, SBTRKT making the music in a very very collected manner. He is a very very skilled masked man. Sampha has the voice of modern age angel. They go together like bread and butter, like Vans and hipsters, like Fine Line and Bright Colour. I hadn’t expected wonders from Azari & III. I like a few of their tracks and new they were worth going to see but that’s all I’d anticipated. (By now FLBC were really functioning on a higher level anyway). Azari &III are so so much more than my music, they are an act. Cedric and Fritz are (thank you, The Guardian) ‘ doing their best Prince impressions over an expanding house track’ for most of the set, and dancing with unbounded energy. Cute is the WRONG word to describe how they interact with each other, and dancing, teasingly up to one another, but you get the picture. By the end of the set FLBC wanted life size photos of those two on their walls to inject a bit of Azari into everyday life. Life would be much better.
I’m sorry I missed you, Robyn.
Other stand out sets were Junior Boys, Apparat Band, Nicolass Jaar, Bag Raiders and of course, of course, Patrick Wolf who was on top form.
I can’t possibly explain each set, and do each set justice, and still expect to not get boring in all my ‘it was AMAZING’s. But, one more time, Melt! 2011; god, it was amazing.
So then FLBC took it around Europe and saw some amazing sites and cities, rode many incredible pedalos, and ate some terrible meals, sometime two at a time.
Touch down in the UK for a week of post travelling blues before heading to East London fields, sadly lacking in Polaroid ap OR i Phone. Definite new age fun, with a vintage feel abound as BC headed to Field Day, leaving FL to Big Chill.
FLBC had been given a Field Day leaflet in London a few months back and were suitably impressed by the line-up. The like of Jamie XX, Mount Kimbie and SBTRKT (again!) were enough to get me suitably excited. And yes, the acts were all there, and yes, they are all great. But the feel of the day festival wasn’t quite right. I can’t quite work up the right festival feel in a day. The crowds also loved to push and swarm. It was still a fun day and I mean in no way to run-down Field Day as a whole. I like the village fete feel, I like all the stands and I like the deck chairs. I like the music, but it wasn’t as two-step form one set to another as I’d had hoped. You had to plan where to be to get a good place for each set. SBTRKT almost had me on the floor. But still, Jamie XX’s set was good, SBTRKTs even better (not as good as Melt! mind), Wild Beasts successfully rekindled my love for them and Mount Kimbie didn’t quite work on the big tent stage, but still created great music.
Personally, I like sitting early in the afternoon, eating a picnic and casually listening to Matt Walsh’s set at the Bugged Out stage; the stage which kept up a steady stream of good music with the likes of Pearson Sound and Roska.
Field Day was fun, but something wasn’t quite right. Maybe it was me, or maybe it’s the current state of UK youth or whatever. Great music, good location, what was missing?
And that brings us right up to date. I sit writing this, recovering, reliving Field Day.
I think that’s all for now.
Here’s to an amazing month of live music; 2011’s had a damn fine festival season. Now to get FLBC into The Strokes at Reading for free… we can dream.
xxx
finelinebrightcolour 