Gyptian - Hold You (Shy FX & Benny Page Digital Soundboy Remix)

This was the final track dropped by Kenny Ken at Bloc 2011. Haven't dared to listen back to it since because it'll never be as amazing as it was that night.

As incredible as the D&B is right now, you gotta make room for the old skool stuff as well. Zinc's remix of Ready Or Not remains a big tune whenever it goes off.

After Action Report: Bestival 2010

Over the past few years, and despite it's awful name, Bestival has definitely established itself as both the last festival of the season, and the last hurrah of the summer, making it very much a festival of mixed emotions. It heralds the start autumn, but also gives the summer a massive, ravey pat on the back, and that can only be a good thing.

This was our third run on Bestival, and the lineup remained as diverse as ever, unmatched by any other UK festival for it's ability to cover every strand of the musical spectrum. It seemed that it would be impossible for Rob Da Bank to bring together a collection of performers as fantastic as those in attendance last year (how can you top Kraftwerk?), but he certainly managed it, running from the mainstream (headliners Dizzy Rascal and The Prodigy) to the more left field (basically everyone else).

There were so many good performances this year, that it's hard to know where to begin, but here's some of the highlights, although it's important not to forget the many DJs and acts who filled in the gaps between and kept the music flowing throughout.

The mesmerising, fragile electronica of Four Tet kicked things off for us on Friday afternoon, blowing away the hangovers and broken knees from Thursday night's partying in the Chai Wallah tent, followed up by Bestival stalwarts Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip. We've always had love for Beard and Sideburns, ever since seeing them back at Latitude 2007, and they owned the main stage, with the crowd singing along to every word.

As the day ran on, other highlights included beat poet hero Gil Scott-Heron, who slowed things down a notch with his soul and blues, including an amazing rendition of "We Almost Lost Detroit" and Flying Lotus, whose intensive bass-therapy kept things weird and wobbly in the Big Top once the masses had cleared off at the end of The xx. Despite our general lack of interest in Dizzy Rascal, he really did put on a great performance as he closed the Main Stage for the Friday night.

Saturday saw both Rolf Harris driving back the morning rain with his ancient Australian voodoo magic and David Rodigan presenting his history of dub lesson in the Bollywood Bar, with The Wailers and Darwin Deez keeping things ticking over in between. We couldn't get close to Bollywood to see Shy FX (drum and bass always attracts a bad crowd), but fortunately D-Bridge and Instra:Mental cleared most of the lightweights out, leaving us access to High Contrast, who pretty much played the best set I've seen since the Hospitality at the Scala back in 2008. Following on from High Contrast was Sub Focus in the Big Top, who slightly disappointed by just sticking to his album tracks, but with an album as good as his, you can't really blame him, and we all had a great time singing along to the old knees up classics of Last Jungle, Timewarp and so on. A fantastic end to the night.

With Sunday rolling round, fatigue was definitely starting to set in, but an early pick me up from The Bikini Beach Band surf rock crew certainly sorted us out, as did a nice stroll in the woods. Wax Tailor's trippy hip hop in the Big Top was also great fun, and The Prodigy tore it out on the Main Stage, showing just what an accomplished, nuclear-powered festival machine they have become. Closing the festival in the Big Top was the hauntingly beautiful Fever Ray and of course the incredible LCD Soundsystem, with James Murphy giving it his all. A powerful, emotional performance, and my personal highlight of the Festival.

Bestival remains without a doubt the highlight of the UK festival season, although this year it certainly seemed to be feeling the strain of the extra 8000-odd punters. Obviously it's a business, and for all the promoters' talk about being a celebration of music and gaiety or whatever nonsense the marketing team come up with for next year, it needs to make money. However, it felt like the festival was at capacity last year, and if they try and cram anymore people in, they risk killing it. There was definitely a shortage of toilets and camping space this year, despite the best efforts of the stewards and cleanup squads, and the usual complaints about choke points remain. What sort of maniac chooses to hold a festival on an island anyway?

Beer, programme costs, ferries, shuttle buses and parking fees all remain a massive ripoff, which leaves a bad taste in the mouth, but this has long been par for the course when it comes to UK festivals, and as long as you're prepared for the shock, and sensible about sneaking booze through security, it shouldn't be enough to ruin an excellent weekend. The sad thing is that Bestival has shown that it can command these prices, and will no doubt be even more expensive next year.

But we shall go back.

We need to go back.

There's a magic to Bestival that one struggles to find anywhere else, despite it becoming increasingly mainstream. The music, the performers, the strange bits of sculpture, the site and the crowd all come together perfectly to create a wonderful vibe.

It's the best festival.

After Action Report: L.E.D Festival 28/8/2010

As we trekked down to Victoria Park, Hackney, for the first London Electronic Dance Festival (or LED; wonder which came first, the name or the acronym?), we were expecting August rain and mud. Fortunately, the sun came out and the clouds parted. An auspicious sign for what looked to be a great day of music, albeit a weirdly diverse one.


We skipped LED's Friday night, with the headliners David Guetta, Calvin Harris et al. promising largely cheese-flavoured house (great if that's what you're into, but not really the sort of artists anyone would want to pay money to see when you can hear their stuff at a million Lloyd's/Wetherspoons across the country on a Friday night). I'd had a quick look at the Internet chatter, which suggested the first day of the event had been a bit of a shambles, with set times all over the place. It's important to remember however that people always rush to Facebook when they feel even a tiny bit aggrieved with something, so one has to take the e-rage with a pinch of salt and the anticipation of Leftfield and Aphex Twin far over-powered any trepidation.

Anyway, as we approached Victoria Park, everything seemed to be running well. Security weirdly confiscated the lid from my water bottle, whilst missing the eight keys of uncut cocaine in the bottom of my bag, but apart from that there was little trouble retrieving the tickets and getting through the gate. We arrived to the sound of Sub Focus's Timewarp thudding away in the distance and were surprised to find that it actually was Sub Focus, on at three in the afternoon.

Sub Focus - Fantastic set from Mr Douwma, even though he kept veering off into house and dubstep (at least it keeps the kids happy). MC ID largely got in the way of the music (as to be expected) but occasionally shut up long enough for the audience to hear what the DJ was doing. Was amazing to hear Xample and Lomax - Link To The Past go off loud, and it's impossible to get bored of Last Jungle and Rock It, no matter how much it's been run into the ground over the last few years.

Professor Green - Pretty good performance, even though Grime isn't really of interest to anyone ever. General opinions seem to be that he sounded like Eminem, but that this was a good thing.

Shy FX - Lovely, solid drum and bass from a DJ that for some reason I've always found it hard to get excited about, even though he's done great sets in the past. Opening with SL2 - On A Ragga Tip set up the perfect festival vibe and with the absence of an MC, Shy FX's set was actually more satisfying the Sub Focus's.

Boy Better Know - Lots of shouting men. Meh.

Annie Mac - Functional set from the Radio 1 DJ. Wasn't expecting anything special, but the crowd seemed to be enjoying it. The overpriced beer/cider double team must have been working its magic by this point.

Goldfrapp - For a festival with only two stages and not that many acts, the fact that Goldfrapp clashed with Aphex Twin was pretty unforgivable, although perhaps the organizers felt that Aphex's abusive electronic hatenoise and Goldfrapp's airy synthpop would have little crossover appeal. Anyway, we missed the start of Aphex to see Goldfrapp, but for this I have no remorse. Goldfrapp gave an awesome performance, with Alison Goldfrapp seemingly dressed as a swarm of bees, mixing older tracks with newer stuff as the sun set over Hackney. Lovely stuff.

Aphex Twin - Despite missing the start of Richard D. James' LED performance, we fortunately arrived in time to feel the full force of his deranged techno throatpunch. As his set built to a thunderous climax, it felt like being trapped in the boot of a taxi whilst dinosaurs pound on the outside, shining lasers and strobes in through the keyhole (i.e. he smashed it).

Leftfield - Being the last act, everyone flocked to the main stage to catch Leftfield in action, so there was no way to get near the front and feel the full impact of the band. Leftfield will always hold a special place in my heart, as Leftism was one of my first albums, and it was fantastic to hear so many tracks dropped. Space Shanty, Afrika Shox, Open Up, Afro-Left; they all still pack a one hell of a punch, and when Phat Planet inevitably went off for the encore, my head exploded.

So overall, LED was certainly a great day out, with even the shit selection of overpriced beer and slightly dodgy timetabling not enough to hold it back. The only major problem had to be that the sound levels were all over the place. I assumed this was due to evil sound technicians messing with the drug munchers, but it was more likely the result of licensing restrictions. Was quite a shame though, because a little more oomph would have pushed Leftfield into the stratosphere.

Will be interesting to see if LED happens again next year. Certainly one to keep an eye on.