Bloc 2011: Highs and Lows

[dj_yt]

Overall, Bloc was great this year! Much better than 2010 musically, and I think from an atmosphere perspective!

Lows: (And there weren't many)

- The swimming pool only opening for 2 hours on Friday. Then not being able to get on any of the flumes due to the queues. Boo. Needs to open MUCH earlier on Friday, especially as there is no music on yet!

- The security, in Jak:Bloc on Saturday night, who can best be described as thugs. They managed to knock me onto the floor, whilst they were running through the arena. In the process, I landed on my face, split my lip and ended up leaking blood everywhere. When I complained to the lady on the door, she was simply rude to me. It's sad that the only trouble I saw all weekend was caused by them!

- Not sure what happened to booking earlier and getting a closer chalet this year. I was at the furthest point of the complex. Any idea if this has changed?!

Highs:

- The Dome. It was simply wicked every night. Loved the sets I heard from 214, Jerome Hill, ADJ, Posthuman vs Digitional, Mark Archer, Placid, AGT Rave Kru etc. Visuals were awesome. The security chap was really friendly and always in a good mood at this arena. Big up!

- Lineup organisation. Very few clashes for me this year. I don't know whether this was cunning planning by Bloc, or simply luck!

- Laurent Garnier. I think this was the best closing set at Bloc since Ben Sims in 2008.

- Dopplereffekt. I've waited ages to see them and they didn't disappoint.

- Brackout. The world needs more of this. Delighted they extended it till 2am. Too many good DJs condensed into too shorter space of time though. Needed way more than 30 mins of Matt Whitehead.

- Kyle Hall. A proper DJ set, with awesome mixing and track selection.

- Fancy dress. Some amazing outfits this year! Loved the people who dressed as speed cameras!

- Atmosphere and crowd. Top notch and super friendly this year. Loads of funny conversations and nonsense. Loved the amount of random screaming coming from the chalets on Sunday evening.

- Bring on 2012!

[Warpiggy]

Highs:

LFO - completely smashed it
redBLOC on the sunday...the jungle got more massif the later the night went on
modeselektor
moderat
AFX - better than i expected tbh...so was four tet
the people (again...best festival crowd in the world)
the weather (again)
Lows:

french people telling us to turn down 'le techno' at lunch time on the saturday afternoon...didn't really appreciate it...especially considering we weren't even listening to techno!
Spinbacks......can someone explain to me what the deal is? call me old fashioned but i prefer hearing tunes...not hearing the start of them twice is it an english thing? any english people care to elaborate on what the point is cos you all seem to enjoy it? i can remember seeing scream and benga in dublin and they were literally booed off stage under a shower of beer n plastic cups cos they wouldn't play a song without spinning it back to the start and then tellin people to listen to the tune...muppets
the dome it was good fun inside but you can only stay in until you finish your pint or have to go to the toilet. missed AGT (my favourite hangover cure at bloc for the last 3 years) because of the queues

amazing weekend again tho. much love to the organisers xxx

[chas]

I got to see all my favourite acts in the dome. If you were 10 15 mins early you would get in. Fucking warm in there though. Hard to care though, when Im standing right in front of Vibert and Ceephax.

[CyberMonkey]

highs:
-moderat (although it was mainly one big cd-flashback)
-aphex twin
-Laurent Garnier with his insane 3.5 hours set. damn.
-all the other exellent music
-The dude dressed as Harvey Birdman. The suitcase finished it
-the dudes dressed as the the evil Matrix twin
-the audio system with its bonecrushing bass and needlesharp resolution. Still being able to have a chat with your neighbour though and not having you ears ringing for two days - perfect. Excellent quality wherever you were standing too. Funktion one people really have their shit together.
-projected visuals in centre stage with some guys using custom made controllers to tune it. Cool LED wall too and in tek stage as well.
-the short bald security guy with the ready smile at the ableton dome, chill dude.
-random chats with random strangers when waiting in line - hello there valium dude and hello there older rolling couple
-the diversity and general friendlyness of partiers
-meeting up with total strangers at the apartment and them turning out to be great people
-coaches which were well organised (which is an big improvement over last time I went to block, two years ago). coaches were quality rides as well.

lows:
-some cokechicks spilling bad vibes
-some lameass security person - obviously working for own accord - intruding the privicy of toilet stalls and stealing my property.. my fault too though.
-ableton dome being way too small and way too hot, cool concept though
-a large part of the center stage dance floor being used by the light and sound control - pushing people back up and to the side. Was it really not possible to move the control tower back, possibly up one level?

[StarStuff]

Highs: Man there is so many!

Garnier: What an amazing set to finish with, dying to find the name of that epic tune he played right before man with the red face. (fingers crossed for a full video of that set)

Aphex twin: Im not a big fan of his music and really didnt know what to expect as I've never seen him live but I was pleasantly surprised. He showed real diversity with the genres and had us going the whole way through. (crazy ending )

Vitalic: BANGIN. nuff said

LFO: Never seen him before but man I loved it!

Daedelus: Watched some of his youtube stuff before and really looked forward to seeing him and he was a lot of fun.

Drop the lime: Funky fresh from start to finish.

(I could go on and name amazing sets for hours but I wont)

The big robot at the costume night with all the lights was savage!

Our gold apartments! I'll never sleep in a tent again!

The Morrisons experience on the Friday was hilarious. Funniest mix of people ever! All the locals oldies buying their groceries and waves of ravers in the booze area cleaning the place out!

The crowd at Bloc was immense, best group of people for the most part I've ever met at any festival.

Watching our neighbours every day out of it on K trying to climb and decend the 3 flights of stairs to their apartment.. It was fucking comical.

Bloc TV: Calamari wrestler and weng weng.. holy shit!

LOWS:

Having my gold chain robbed off my neck by some English thugs as I walked off the dancefloor in Red Bloc.One lad jumps out in front of us to distract us asking for some gear while another grabbed it off my neck. Thought he was trying to rip the glow sticks off my neck until later I realized it was my chain he had actually taken.. Wasnt in the best frame of mind so didnt pick up on what happened till I was back at the apartment.

I had one ridiculous search on Saturday by some short security guard as I was entering the pavillion.. He must have worked for the fuckin TSA before he was so full on with the search..It was borderline abusive and he seemed to be doing it to a lot of people!

Nit picking now: the smell in Jak Bloc was rotten but I spent fuck all time there so it didnt really matter.


All in all it was probably the best weekend of our lives and cant wait to get back next year!

[dj_yt]

Spinbacks......can someone explain to me what the deal is? call me old fashioned but i prefer hearing tunes...not hearing the start of them twice is it an english thing? any english people care to elaborate on what the point is cos you all seem to enjoy it?

I believe it's a dancehall/reggae concept originally that crept into jungle via the MCs in the early 90s and from there spread and infiltrated most music that sprouted from those roots.

Originally, it could be used to good effect - if the crowd really was going completely wild to a particular track. Nowadays, it's a chance for loud mouth MCs to order the DJs around and ruin the flow and vibe of a set - ignoring the wishes of the crowd. Curious to know whether anyone still likes a set with endless rewinds?

Thankfully, I didn't hear a single rewind all weekend - but then again I think the only set I went to with an MC was Joy Orbison... and that set was decent

[Warpiggy]

in the red:bloc on sunday it almost ruined what was an unbelievably good fun night...we hadn't slept in a long long time at that stage and going bonkers to a tune was getting harder and harder. the last thing any of us needed was everything stopping suddenly and having to start all over again! even Gentlemans Dub Club threw in a few of them and they're a band for christ sakes!!!

cheers for some info on it tho...we always wonder when we go raving in england why the fuk they seem to be thrown in everywhere!

[g-bo]

highs

the music seemed to flow much better than last year, each room had a proper themed showcase, atmosphere benefitted from that, djs brought better sets

getting there nice and early on friday, each year i didnt get there until 8pm/10pm

lows

warm arenas, this was more aparent than any other year ive been, badly ventalated rooms, resulted in sticky floors and horrible b.o smell every room u went into, especially the dome and jak bloc

the sound during ancient methods, just went u needed the sound to be great

[I_Love_Acid]

The big robot at the costume night with all the lights was savage!

That'll be the AGT Robot Cru (affectionately known as SHIT ROBOT)

Here he is getting his arse kicked by a much better robot:

[dj_yt]

Anyone know if there were more people at Bloc this year than previously? The arenas seemed busier to me. Or maybe this was simply because there was more awesome stuff to hear!

[catwarrior]

Lows:

Aphex's set - when your being paid that much why not deliver !? pretty standard set
The security- A lot of the security were really aggy this year and I heard some peoples flats got raided- whats that about??
Ikonika- Kicking up a fuss half way through her set due to set-up -bloody pre-madonna- and then them flogging it off as a power cut
Visuals- some of the visuals are pretty not up to scratch (red bloc?) I like the fact they got plasmas and l.e.d.s in tho, really think good visuals add another dimension to the overall performance
Ben Klock, Shackleton AND LFO at the same time !

Highs:

Much better atmosphere this year !
Shackleton -abseloutly smashed it and i think he really worked at a festival rather then a dubstep lineup !
The dome and the projections- badddddd
The people- good crowd this year, although quite rigid at times (no moshing at venetian snares)!
Laurent garnier- No more said, cherry on top for the whole festival


Thanks BLOC !

[Warpiggy]

Aphex's set - when your being paid that much why not deliver !? pretty standard set

just out of curiosity....what should he have played to make it a non-standard set? i much preferred having him belt out some techno rather than sit and listen to a snares type nonsense-fest...i wouldn't have lasted too long if that hadda happened!

[Neon Jung]

Prima donna

Hi - Lone
Rustie
Edgar
Falling in a bush with a lady, star gazing only to get up and find Richard D. James perching on the railings wanting in on the action. Then hanging out with him for the rest of Saturday morning. He was fooked, and a bit of a perv, and looked like an alien. The seaguls were laughing at me
The people - big love!!
Bloc.TV - please name any films you watched over the weekend. What was that film called something like 'Megatonne' or some shit? Had a dude in it that looked like a lion and his eyes were too close together

Low - Couple of security meat heads
JakBloc stench on the Sunday - smelled like a wet dog fucking a tramp
Too little variation in a lot of the Techno being played for my liking.
Some dude went psycho in the chalet next to us and jumped out of a window on the saturday morning - crcked his skull open and had to be taken away by an ambulance. I'm not sure which chalets we were in but we were right next to the church (anyone know the story behind this?)

Love you all and can't fucking wait til next year!

[marama]

highs
black devil disco club: great concert and abslolutely cool guy
dopplereffekt: one of my favourite artists. was little concerned if a festival crowd would be patient enough to watch the performance, but the live was danceable from the beginning. I have the feeling gerald adapted his set. normally he takes much more time to build up his set. people seemed to enjoy
dj pete: just one of the best. amazing trackselection
lfo: bang
ancient methods: dark
bloc djs: every year, I´m impressed by some dj sets by the bloc djs. respect
bloc tv.
nice people: best festival crowd
funktion one sound system

lows
no records for sale, no 2nd hand clothing shop and no massage this year last 2 years was a much nicer atmosphere during the day in the hall. this made bloc also special. pleaaaase bring it back next year.
queue for afx. first time I missed an act due to a queue. but can live with it, because of the rest of the amazing line up.
I had the feeling it was more crowded this year. jack bloc for example was allways packed when I was there.
dome: I love the dome, but most of the time it was impossible to get in. once inside, you had to stay in, otherwise you had to queue again...artists like a guy called gerald shouldn´t play there

cu next year

[Warpiggy]

Prima donna
Some dude went psycho in the chalet next to us and jumped out of a window on the saturday morning - crcked his skull open and had to be taken away by an ambulance. I'm not sure which chalets we were in but we were right next to the church (anyone know the story behind this?)

was that at the very end of row 'M' of halnicote village? we seen a window boarded up but didn't really think anything of it when we were heading home...