...............including yours truly piloting on his bang-sub --------->
Whats follows is some adventures at the bangface weekender - a neo-rave extravaganza witth the best of electronica at Camber Sands Holiday Camp in the South of England - fantastic!
We had our tickets booked for the train to Hastings so we made no delay....
In Hastings we hung on for Eric who was coming from Bristol and then scouted around for a frisbee that wasn't to last too long and some sort of food depository, determined not to live on festival food. Col took a short cut and Antoin stuffed as much dairy based gunk into his mouth as possible - buttered scones with crumpets and clotted cream...
Our bus took us through Rye and the windy British countryside to the coast and Cambers Sands - hassle free journey...
On arrival we cought site of the tell-tale inflatable smiley above the chalets. I was group-leader.... ha ha ha ha ha ha ... so i got the wrist-bands for us and our 2 keys. Our chalet was 137 and couldn't have been in a better position. facing the main venue on the corner. We unpacked the shopping, lashed up a few Bangface flyers to turn heads and opened a few beers. We have arrived.
..and plenty happening ouside the window....
But what about the music? Well first up on the bill was Global Goon off Rephlex... top notch electro-tronica to get us going....
It's Max Tundra and Scotch Egg...............saw both play in Dublin over the years....saw both hob-knobbing at this festival.....We missed Scotch Egg
then there was tons of other stuff (putting up later)... got to check the line-up at home......WATCH THIS SPACEWe saw Ceephax as Ceephax Acid Crew the Friday... which was absolute banging 303 action. But as DJ Ceephax in the bar he was pants-a-rama to be honest.. too much cheezey soul. Where was the mobile disco action?
These guys we accidently wandered into and they were absolutely fantastic with their lush electro synths and cool dispositions. We thought they were Stingray for ages... maybe they are..but more likely it's Model 500
Things became a little dis-coloured for a time.........as day blended into night again....
Did I mention the Saturday afternoon pool-party that myself and Antoin went to? Corny old-school breaks to a splashy inflatables frenzy. We got ourselves some flotation devices and mingled in the chlorinated water with the aquatic ravers for about an hour......fun fun fun. I forgot my googles but then I would have been underwater most of the time makig usre all the ladies had appropriate swimming costumes on. We had a great game of hoop the clubbers with the inflatable rings in the end.
Saturday night was the haziest night..... i just remember ending hanging with the Grace's gorgeous gang from Gorey/Athlone/Carlow..... Danielle, Marian, Grace, P, Harvey, ... eh and I forget the names of the rest and think I only got those names half-right. Sound bunch of folks.
I had spotted Grace earlier by the siluette of her hair crossing the lawn, but she had died her hair black since the last time i saw her. Turns out their chalet was behind ours... i could see me doing the dishes if i could see that far. Anyway they had banging tunes in their chalet and allowed me to play some of mine. Hey met Redrum there who said i could support a McGrudeers gig sometime. Anyone know how to get in touch with him?
We all raved pretty fucking hard to 2 of my highlights of the weekend... if only i could recall any of the music! They were the classic Mike Dred - always a blinder on the 303 action and the beautifull only-female-act-of-the-weekend Doubtfull Guest - who headbanged her way through stomping acid rinses. Missed going to see Altern-8 and doubly missed Scotch Egg.. did manage a bit of Producer and Panacea..... i think!!
Hell my days are all mixed up!! When was BOGDAN RACZYNSKI??? Cought the last 30 mins - pretty good but a bit of a press-play fest.
Sunday night was the end-up with absolutely breath-taking techno, hardcore and dub done by the otherworldly Beardyman with just his voice for the first half then looped samples of his voice the second half......Crappy Video footage of Squarepusher what I took: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjMU8mBYwXQ
After that we had 2 sinister black monolithic screens roll across the stage to cut it down to a small squarewindow. 2 bass guitars were brought out and various laptopish equipment arranged. Squarepusher was about to close bangface with a bass-tastic assault. the sister monoliths are his amazing blissed out light show that just plays variations of the [ ] shape that this guys has totally hijacked for his own image.
He played about 3 new tracks - inlcuding a cheeky little vocal number with signature melodies and driving beats and a rather good punk-esque one, all with live bass lines of course. Then he cut into his main set which had bass-fueled acid tracks warble all over the place.... One was the relentless one he's played during the Ultravisitor tour that ends on a lush 5 minute bass-only noodle-a-thon. Then there was the unreleased Breezeblock track he's been playing recently too - an acid stomper too. Then we got Hello Meow - i think... He fitted in Angstromm Feck 4, Modern bass guitar and Exciton.. a crowd favourite for sure. Here the light show went from washed out pure white to space-ship landing-light red..... in perfect tune with the tracks. He ended with C'mon my selector and Journey to Redham for a nifty encore.
The Sound was amazing at the front, but reduced majorly in quality at the back. The heat was pretty bad too. Overall though a great set and the bangface crowd was the best ever.... a million glo-sticks arced back and forth during the whole thing in a rainbow firefight to the blistering bass assault. Smental!!!
The next day was the checking out....... Grace and co were off on a minibus to Gatwick but with our flight not till 8pm we declined a lift and got our asses to Hastings for some sea-side enetertainment and breaky. We found an appropriately greasy caf, an awfull amusement arcade and a wonderfull crazy golf course to waste the last hours away.
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