Highs & Lows

[ringing_ears]

Eh? Metro Area didn't play did they? They word on site was that they'd missed their flights.

Will be somewhat pissed if they did!

Well it was definately the DJ before Afrika Bambaataa, which is listed in the schedule as MA but may have been someone else- I don't really know much about electro so wouldn't have recognised the DJ or anything. They had to play for an extra hour cos AB was delayed and they absolutely killed it.

Could someone clear this up?

[Clang]

[quote="gazp"]
Could anyone remind me who was on after Modeselektor? Was really feeling that set[/quote]

Beardyman - awesome!

Highs - Q-Bert (well... the last five minutes anyway!), Rusko (*), Ed Rush and Optical, Daniel Bell, James Tec, Junq, Zion Train (again, but still havinnit!) Jamie Lidell, Beardyman (*), Robert Hood, Green Velvet (surprisingly good!) (*), Mad professor, 2 Bad Mice (*), Skream v Benga (*), Alern8 (*), Afrika Bambaataa (I really liked the 'block party' vibe but got bored soon enough). Water slides, wave machine, chalets with showers. Really good security (generally polite, friendly and helpful). Funktion One everywhere and truly brilliant sound technicianing all round (*).

* = particularly good =D

Lows - Queueing for 1.5 hours to see Lee Scratch Perry who turned up 2 hours late... and then he was shit anyway (you just can't get the staff these days)! Afrika Bambaataa ariving an hour late (it's just not professional!). Leaving Skream v Benga about half way through to go for a quick break and then seeing the queue to get back in (grrr!!). Leaving on monday and today's headache!

Great job Bloc - I haven't been to many pay-festivals, but this one was my favourite =)

[djsynth]

Hights:

Accomodation big and comfortable: we were 7 and we brought our pasta ,real sugo and real coffee from Italy (sorry guys you have the music but we have the food ) so we were on top!

Swimming pool: so relaxing!!!

Great sunny days

Ulrich Schnauss very emotional

Altern8

The so called time of chains (exile, afx, devine, clark,von shirach)

Egyptian Lover aka the barry white of electro

All the dubstep heroes

Ceephax karaoke

great people

Lows:

Babmbaata played cheesy
Bell played the worst hawtin
FSOL weren't really there
the stupid guy who took my place for singin' wild thing at Ceephax karaoke

[larrycavelle]

Eh? Metro Area didn't play did they? They word on site was that they'd missed their flights.

Will be somewhat pissed if they did!

Well it was definately the DJ before Afrika Bambaataa, which is listed in the schedule as MA but may have been someone else- I don't really know much about electro so wouldn't have recognised the DJ or anything. They had to play for an extra hour cos AB was delayed and they absolutely killed it.

Could someone clear this up?

yeah Metro Area didn't turn up so that guy filled in and DJ'd. I thought he was dope also! I guess it was a Bloc DJ??........

What's the deal with Africa Bambataa playing 'Love Generation'?? I didn't appreciate his Grandson MCing on stage shouting out like it was a 12 year old's DnB rave! LOL! Really gay when he said 'We're all from the same pod, etc. Give it up for the HUMAN NATION, if you're black, white, yellow, pink, blue, purple, YEAH!' Shut the hell up son! ha ha ha ha ha!

apart from that it was the greatest party EVER, ha ha ha!!!

see you there in 2010

peace

[Kinder]

highs: Chalet was a big improvement on last year, especially there being 3 bedrooms for 6 people instead of making 2 people sleep on the living room futon! Also enjoyed the sky:bloc, loads of stuff to do, including the wooden block sequencer thing and the peep show box!

Best act was Ulrich Schnauss for me, started off with some incredibly harmonic ambient music and managed to crank it up slowly to finish with some great techno! Also suitably impressed by Modeselektor, Beardyman, Richard Devine, Ed DMX, I-F, Dynamix II, Ebola and of course Leeds' very own P45

lows: Mostly my own fault i'm afraid, i couldn't get my sleeping patterns right at all this time, which was especially a problem on saturday evening and meant missing out on Tim Exile, Clark and Jamie Lidell - though i've enjoyed them all before at least so i haven't missed out completely.

Disappointments: Afrika Bambataa for being an hour late and playing boring cheese. Although I quite enjoyed hearing FSOL, I was a bit gutted they didn't bother turning up in person and relied on dated technology.

Also, while I had no problems from security myself, I did see one or two odd things, including when they took that cricket bat off the guys on the sky:bloc stage during the raffle (before 6pm on sunday), why? Also heard a rumour during sunday that security and police were going through random chalets, was this true?

Overall though, had a top weekend once again. I'm still gutted at not seeing more acts, but this one is definitely up there with the last one, and Minehead was a great host - ta!

[stripeyhat]

Oh man what a weekend! I'm feeling rather shaky today but that's mainly because I gained a lovely festival cough which kept me awake last night

Highs for me:

Aphex - I don't care if people didn't enjoy it, I had a blast watching him!
Clark - wicked set
Alexander Robotnik
Jerome Hill - I was actually really glad he was on at 7.30 again! We went to the beach after watching him too, which was nice
Rob Hall

Lows:
Missing Lee Perry - again!
I missed Ceephax too - waited a while for him to start but Alexander Robotnik was calling, and once he started I couldn't move
Missed P45

Erm, I guess I'll be back later as I'm sure there were more highs but my brain's not working

[obsidio]

Highs :

Most of Aphex Twin and Hecker, Bassclef, Ed Rush and Optical, Pole. People still being up for Carl Craig and absolutely having it! Butlins, what a place for this kind of festival, all the random stuff and the awesome venues! The fact that it was so easy to meet sound people in the crowds.

Lows :

The Aphex Twin autopsy visuals, the Future Sound of London lacking any real substance. The fact that most people I went with were unable to move for most of Saturday and some of Sunday while I remained relatively healthy (the upside of being less hardcore).

Here's some clips which I posted in the wrong place, just in case it doesnt get moved, here's the link. It very roughly corresponds to my highs and lows . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Gw_SotjOY

[broken arm]

i enjoyed aphex. the best thing was to move to different parts of the room to get the different "surround sound" effects.

It was a totally different experience depending on where you stood.

my low was missing so much stuff I wanted to see. That's about it.

[ya_dancer]

high points - great banter all weekend.
- nice weather.
- few problems with the security apart from one total power tripping cunt who pretty much searched everyone he could who entered the centre stage room.
- Cosmic Force, Daniel Bell, Rob Hood, Redshape, Surgeon, IF, Egyptian Lover, Heartbreak were all on good form.

low points - losing my wallet,
- what seemed a very average friday nights music.
- not sleeping enough,
- seeing very little music all weekend due to getting too wasted and spending too much time in the chalets.
- missing Scientist, Mad Professor, Ruskin too name but a few.


Maybe I'm a bit narrow minded but this festival felt too big for my liking and was trying to embrace too many forms/genres of music. For me this led to a watered down generic feel of a lot of the acts. Sometimes I got the feel that some artists would have been better placed just to put a 'best of' cd on. Perhaps I'm just turning into a cynical old man though!

Overall I definately preferred last years bloc weekend in terms of line up, capacity and venues.

[misspottymouth]

highs

Clark, fave artist.......i ventured over to red solo and met some wicked people. he played an amazing set aswell. I've been smiling ever since haha.

The whole of Saturday/Sunday Morning. Heading over with the people i met during Clark, saw Aphex Twin. Weird and fucked up. haha amazing. I looked to my right and on the big screens was some messed up video and a guy in a pigs head going for it next to me. Looked left and the speaker woman was going for it...that was insane.

Beardymans bit with Exile. I was gutted that i was going to miss beardymans set so it was grand i got to see him for a bit before i left RED.

Green Velvet- My legs are like jelly still from all the dancing.

Skream and Benga. so so packed!!!!

The weather!

Amazing people at Bloc too. Was my first year and i met some top notch people and everyone was so friendly.

The shop being open at 9am when i came out of Jaks on sunday morning and for the lady helping me up when i slipped yey.



LOWS (if you can call them that)

FSOL not actually being there. I was looking round thinking i was going mad that i couldnt see them. I would have switched their sets with skream and benga's. therefore having upbeat replace a more chilled FSOL set which could have happened on sunday. (im still not complaining though)

The whole Lee Scratch Perry queue. I joined. sat down......waited. then thought nahhhh. So went to the digital fun fair, saw myself in titanic and went to Ulrich Shnauss.


Missing out on Ceephax kareoke. The mixer broke so it was delayed a little bit but by then i was in RED for skream.

Not making it to the pool. i even bought a bikini just for the occasion. bahhhhh.




ONLY 12 MORE MONTHS TILL BLOC!

[Rogue Molecule]

Highs:

Catching up with loads of folk I've not seen in ages
Hearing ragga jungle in Pizza Hut
Climing out onto rocks in the sea at 10am and lying there for hours talking shit in the sunshine
Our neighbours for being down right nice people

Lows:

Not getting self catering even though we paid for it
Missing 4 Hero

Overall I had a cracking weekend and no where near as messy as last year. I'm enjoying having some brain cells left.

[alexbk]

The Future Sound of London set was the high point for me - absolutely amazing psychedelia that nobody else can do. Good mix of old and new stuff, and the two seamleassly mixed 'hits' at the end which did send the crowd wild. As for them not showing up, yes, it makes the proceeding only slightly different from listening to a radio transmission at home, but that's how they always do gigs, you gotta know and expect that.

Runners-up: I-F, Ulrich Schnauss, Heartbreak, Egyptian Lover (great showmanship).

The lows: Aphex Twin (loud and messy), Modselektor (Justice wannabes, anyone?), Afrika Bambaataa (indeed, showing up an hour late and then playing cheese).

[J]

Eh? Metro Area didn't play did they? They word on site was that they'd missed their flights.

Will be somewhat pissed if they did!

Well it was definately the DJ before Afrika Bambaataa, which is listed in the schedule as MA but may have been someone else- I don't really know much about electro so wouldn't have recognised the DJ or anything. They had to play for an extra hour cos AB was delayed and they absolutely killed it.

Could someone clear this up?

That was lawrence (agent 2) half of rebel intelligence.....wicked set!

[alexbk]

The radio static coming out of the rear speakers during Aphex's set seems to be The Hecker's part, I'm not sure what else he was really doing there, and why he was there to begin with

[Stussy73]

Following touchy-feely HR appraisal rules, the negatives first:

- FSOL. They must have been laughing all the way to the bank. They can't have had any visual feedback, because a room of people stood still should have told them to stop playing beatless music and give us something to dance to. Lowlight of the weekend.

- Visuals (screens, not lasers). Nowhere near as good as last year.

- The lack of live instruments compared with last year. Red Snapper / Dead Silence provided a nice easing in to the electronics.

- The number of food poisoning stories I'm hearing. I won't be eating any Butlins food next year!

But the positives...oh my.

+ The DJ before Afrika Bambaataa. Who was he? George Hull is the best guess I've heard yet. Stunning set.

+ Altern8. Mark Archer proves that 90-92 provided some of the best dance music of all time. Tight, fast mixes.

+ AGT Rave Cru. Party party party. Shame the sound was muffed up. Was it really those twats from the next act? Nice to see the payback of the packed dancefloor clearing

+ Carl Craig and Green Velvet reigniting my love of techno.

+ Dynamix II (or I as it now seems). Love those beats!

+ Rob da Bank. Totally surprised by his set, and very glad to have been dragged down there when we were all being beard-stroking idiots and claiming he would be too commercial.

+ Lasers in the Centre:Bloc. Beautiful and used to the perfect extent I thought.

+ Beardyman for making a song based on calling the soundman a c*nt.

+ The Cliche set with the dress-up dancers etc. Lively stuff that kept me awake at 4am!

+ THE CROWD! I was worried that the jump to 5000 peeps would bring in more idiots. Not the case. Bloc crowd still rules with way-out happiness.

+ The venue. Comedown Bowling highly recommended. Chalets were far nicer than last year. Security seemed to be doing enough but not too much...

Bring on 2010!