Sinister: REPORT BACK: Benicassim Review

[Sam Walton]

Ello my sinister chums.

Well, what a fun week I have had, because I’ve been in Benicassim, at the 
Festival Internacional de Benicassim. I got back yesterday, only to be 
greeted with 233 new emails, which I loyally trudged through, but more 
thoughts on some of those later. This may be a long-ish post, because I have 
things to say other than the BENICASSIM REVIEW.


+ + + + + START OF BENICASSIM GIG REVIEW + + + + + + + +

Rachel Playforth said:
>>>I’ve also been swimming in the sea every day this week (well except for 
>>>today as it was a bit nippy) and how many Londoners can say THAT?

Well, I can, actually, because the festival was on the coast, and only a ten 
minute walk to the **warm** Mediterranean, so I swam quite a bit. Yum…

Unsurprisingly, it was scorching hot, and the tent where the gig was just 
seemed to trap the heat. So by the time me and Hannah had stood through five 
mediocre bands (we arrived at the beginning to get to the front), whilst the 
whole tent behind us filled up to bursting point, everything was pretty 
packed and sweaty. Then at about 8.15pm, the music from the PA faded, and 
the string players came on. And then nothing happened. Then the string 
section went off again. The roadies had forgotten to sound-check some of the 
instruments and had forgotten to put out Mick’s trumpet and French horn on 
stage. Oh well. So about 10 minutes later, the music from the PA faded 
again, and the string section came on again, but this time closely followed 
by the band. They looked great, as ever. Struan in white short-sleeve shirt 
and dark grey trousers, Isobel in **that** Bob Dylan dress, etc etc. The 
Spanish fans were a keen lot, I’ll tell you that. There was one boy behind 
me and Hannah, and he screamed really hard in our ears when the band came on 
and then continued to do so through the first song, and I felt awful when I 
gave a him “shut up, please” face, because he was making us deaf. Anyway, 
the set was the same kind of thing as the UK tour, and here are the songs 
they played.

    From Tigermilk:
My Wandering Days Are Over

    From TWATTYBUS:
The Boy With The Arab Strap
Simple Things To Make A Young Boy Sigh

    From FISHYCLAP:
The Model
Don’t Leave The Light On Baby
The Wrong Girl
Women’s Realm
There’s Too Much Love

    From the EPs:
Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie
Legal Man
Jonathan David

    From the Peel Sesh:
The Magic Of A Kind Word
My Baby’s Got Miraculous Technique

    Two New Songs:
Wandering Alone
Untitled Stevie Song

Of the new songs, Wandering Alone was the better one I thought, although I 
thought both were grand. WA is a regular Struan song – nice, pretty, very 
B&S – and he needed the lyrics for it, which were produced from backstage 
scribbled on a piece of manuscript paper, so it must be pretty new (or very 
old). The other one was quite a Spanish sounding, almost country-and-western 
style jaunt sung by Stevie, which Hannah suggested (and I agreed) sounded 
like the Mavericks. But in a Good Way.

The gig, overall, was just superb, and I might even venture to say it was 
better than the RAH, perhaps because the sound quality was better, i.e. not 
so much echo, and slightly louder. The band was really tight, and they 
seemed to be having fun. Richard gurned as only he can. Isobel looked very 
pretty as only she can. Struan danced as only he can. But perhaps the cutest 
moment in the gig came after the opening song, when a little envelope was 
passed from the crowd. Struan came down to collect it. It had lots of little 
twee stickers and the words “For Chris” written in felt-tip pens on the 
front, and it was really sweet. Struan gave it to Beans and he blushed…

But anyway, I was trying to think was I was going to write in this post on 
the way home from the festival yesterday, and I think I’ve got it: The sound 
that B&S make is like an old, favourite, wooly jumper – it’s so comforting 
and familiar and such a warm-fuzzy feeling. I thought so anyway. I came away 
from the tent that night feeling like a proud father, which seems a tad 
bizarre, although I think I can justify it: In the campsite earlier that 
day, we were telling people to go and see B&S, and they were going, “Yeah, 
right, okay” rather dismissively. So when they played such a brilliant gig, 
I just wanted to go up to Struan and hug him and say thanks, not just for 
playing a great gig, but for proving to so many people how great I’d said 
they were. Okay, so I’m not being particularly articulate this afternoon, 
but hopefully you’ll get my drift. So yeah, they were fab, and we met Jordi, 
among other Sinisterines, and that too was fun.

And that was about it – the rest of the festival was fab, too, but that’s 
probably the bit you guys are most interested in…

+ + + + + + END OF BENICASSIM GIG REVIEW + + + + + + + + +



But wow! Things here are getting a bit uppity at the moment aren’t they? I 
totally concur with Honey and all that he said. But then again most other 
people probably do, too. Perhaps Honey just needs to bang some people’s 
heads together to make them let the subject drop. That’s all I’ll say on 
that.

The picnic the other Saturday was fun. It was fab meeting the York massive – 
you are all lovely people. MIGMK’s dry wit made me chuckle lots.

Indeed, Mummy I’ve Grazed My Knee said:
>>>At the other end of the scale, Sam Walton was much bigger than I thought. 
>>>He looks like beans.

I shall only take that as a compliment. But tell me Chris, what kind of 
beans? Mange-tout? Runner? Baked? C’mon, you’re driving me schizo here…

On the same subject of the picnic, Mr Apps Ben B said:
>>>There must be dozens of young hopefuls queuing up to have Asm Awlton's 
>>>nimble fingers dancing on their neck <Gosh!>. I'm gonna bring percussion 
>>>instead.

But alas, all hopes of that will be dashed next picnic, as I will bring my 
own geeetar. I’ll bring my trumpet too, since it was such a hit last time. I 
might even bring my kazoo, so I can do that bit off Mayfly.

So yeah, what else has been happening? Brier Random said:
>>>The only thing I can't get is the line in "My Girl's Got Miraculous 
>>>Technique" (which is the best song of the lot) which sounds like 
>>>"Pee-pee, I made a bill”
I’m pretty sure the lyric is “John Peel at Maida Vale/I got my clothes 
dry-cleaned to commemorate the day”, but I might be wrong…

Chim-Chim quoted Cake in a post. This is definitely a Good Thing. If only 
they’d tour the UK more. Perhaps I’ll join a Cake list and complain…

And that really is about it. Sorry that this post has been so long, but I 
had to write about Benicassim, and well, once I got started...

It’s cold here, and warm in Spain. It’s not fair.

Love,

Asm.x





      =================
   "Shut up! The man's a demi-god!"
               - Mary-Anne Hobbs


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