Last night’s Benicassim ended for us at about 7am this morning, after chilling out from a hard night’s work by the backstage swimming pool with the Arctic Monkeys, some Horrors, Fifi Geldof and various others… so Animal Collective and Calexico were a perfect way to kick off the festival’s final day.
A three-hour wait for a taxi to get to the festival site this afternoon compounded the technical difficulties we had yesterday – over the course of the day, my camera memory card ‘malfunctioned’, my laptop adaptor fused and my phone died, but I’ve clawed back from the brink of journalistic breakdown and am connected again!
We arrive in the nick of time to catch a treat of a performance from Animal Collective.
As you would expect, the three electro-experimentalists are huddled over and around a plethora of keyboards, mics, samplers, drum pads, and more gadgetry. Some lovely underwater sounds swirl around pumping beats and bass – then change to a cacophony of grindy, dirty, scrunchy electro noises. The two vocals work in synergy throughout the set, often seeming more like instruments than voices.
The crowd are dancing like they’re at an all night disco party, and for Benicassim it’s technically the ‘morning’ – despite the humidity which feels like it’s increasing as evening sets in.
I’m surprised they played a lot of material from their 2004 stripped-down album ‘Sung Tongs’- considering they have seven LPs to plunder from – but I don’t mind – as tracks like ‘Leaf House’ and ‘Sweet Road’ are nice and psychey.
They played:
‘Doggie’
‘Leaf House’
‘The Softest Voice’
‘College’
‘Sweet Road’
‘Visiting Friends’
‘Mouth Wooed Her’
‘Whaddit I Done’
Great start to the festival’s night – next up Calexico – can’t wait to see their alt.country multi tasking musicians onstage.
Their Arizona sound sould go down pretty well here…
Animal Collective pic credit: Tom Oxley