BLOC Weekend – Butlins Holiday Camp, Minehead – 13 & 14/3/10 [DAYS TWO AND THREE]
4/5
By: Jack Howe, Corin Faife
SATURDAY 13th MARCH
Having been sceptical about the festival-in-a-holiday-camp concept, waking up in a real bed and jumping straight into a hot shower in the morning does have its merits. Instead of overheard conversation from the tent next door, the morning chorus is the cawing of seagulls circling over the chalets, an idyllic childhood memory soundtrack that matches the clear blue sky.
Up and out at a respectable 12.30pm and the place is a ghost town, apart from another crew of early risers enjoying a picnic of Doritos, dips and a crate of Strongbow. Heading to the production office in search of free WiFi I’m told the router has gone down and nobody knows how to reboot it, but the ultra-helpful production manager lets me borrow her laptop and dongle, even though finding a signal means walking out of the office with it to a patch of grass on the other side of the building.
On that note, the staff in general seem almost unreservedly kind and tolerant, which is impressive considering the intoxicated shenanigans they have to put up with. The professional security personnel maintain order without power-tripping, and the Butlins staff, though clearly a little thrown by what we hear one describe as “the craziest weekend of the year”, seem to treat the rampant hedonism with an amused if slightly put-upon indulgence. Presumably they’re either of saintly disposition or have been thoroughly briefed on the importance of maintaining such a lucrative contract.
For those who are that way inclined, dubstep is the order of the day for Saturday. One of the criticisms levelled at last year’s BLOC was, ironically, a lack of coherent blocks in the programming, with punters hooked on specific genres forced to make a dot-to-dot trajectory to enjoy an evening of similar acts. It seems this is a shortcoming the organisers have been keen to rectify, and for the bass-junkies out there, Bristol promoters Subloaded are hosting the Tec:Bloc stage, bringing together some of the heavyweights of the dubstep scene.
To kick off, Mungo’s Hi Fi play a 5pm set, the strength of which isn’t matched by the number of people who turn up to see it, but is fully appreciated by everyone who makes the effort. Tom Tattersall , primary producer from the Scottish collective, plays a set consisting mostly of the crew’s own dub-plates, a heavily roots & dub influenced brand of dubstep which marries pounding bass textures with guest vocals from numerous prominent ragga and reggae artists from the UK scene, overlaid in the live session with a high-pitched staccato vocal from MC Soom T, her elfin build and features a mismatch for the brazen delivery.
Next, Bristol bass music duo Appleblim and Peverelist step up to give a lesson in depth. The night is still young, and truthfully the sub-bass atmospherics of their set would be better enjoyed at 7am than 7pm, but there are still enough people in attendance to give it the attention it deserved.
The first half of the 90 minute set sees them take about five tunes each back-to-back, both mixing seamlessly. The styles contrast but compliment one another, Appleblim playing almost solely dubtechno while the precision-obsessed Peverelist is more varied, switching from ultra-repetitive half-bar loops to stumbling, non-repetitive percussion tracks, the mix as a whole held together by the constant sub-bass pressure and trippy top ends.
Midnight brings one of your reviewers’ most anticipated sets of the weekend, as Dutch import Martyn goes back to back with the Caledonian Kode 9. The pair do not fail to deliver: Kode 9 kicks off with remixes of dancehall producer The Bug’s massive anthems ‘Skeng’ and ‘Poison Dart’, with the tunes (and the system) being so heavy that needles are sent skipping off the records, extra cushions have to be installed under the decks and after howls of disappointment/excitement we’re under way. After some well chosen heaviness, MC Sgt Pokes declares it ‘time to get nice’ and Martyn obliges, spinning his trademark spacey, skippy, rolling dubtechno and keeping the crowd very lively. Come the second half and the duo move on to a partytime carnival funky tip, Geeneus and Dynamite’s epic locomotive riddim ‘Get Low’ drops, big hype is had, and so it continues...
By the end of the set both DJs have solidly demonstrated, as they always do, that bass music can be unconventional and interesting without having to compromise on fun and danceability.
Saturday night wasn’t just about bass one-upmanship though, as two of the acts on the main stage brought a welcome and entirely unpretentious slice of hip-hop history to Minehead. Number one in the order was the original adventurer on the wheels of steel, Grandmaster Flash. Strolling stage-wards with pint in hand, I’m eager to see what the inventor of scratch DJing will produce on stage, since as someone who’s been at the top of his game for more than 20 years he clearly has a huge reputation to live up to. But my expectations are turned on their head when I walk into the room and see the man himself poised in front of two turntables and – shock horror! – a laptop.
More surprisingly, even playing with high-tech toys Flash opts for a bare minimum of prestidigitation during the set, instead playing hip hop classics with just a little flair as the tracks segue from one to the next. There’s an undeniable feelgood factor about knowing you’ve seen a living legend - after all I’d wager that he personally knows the majority of the rappers whose music he’s been playing tonight – but if I were feeling cynical I’d say that almost any competent DJ could deliver the same set. Granted it wouldn’t have the same authenticity, but mid-way through his 2-hour set it really hits home that, in a festival known for its sonic trailblazing, I’m listening to tracks I’ve heard many times before.
Who here can name three Salt n Pepa songs? Maybe you’ll get there, eventually, with a little prompting; point is, most people don’t know their material at all, so how will they fill an hour long set on the main stage? Perhaps trot out lesser known material from their 5-album discography, or maybe present new and avant-garde tracks written in the twelve years since the release of their last album?
The final answer is ‘none of the above’. On-stage the trio (let’s not forget DJ Spinderella) are clearly aware of their kitsch value, and play up to it with boy-girl backing dancer pairs and cover versions of party classics like ‘Celebration’, ‘Twist and Shout’ and ‘Hey Mickey’. Mistresses Salt and Pepa are sleek and sexy in black dresses, they’ve still got the moves and both seem thrilled to be rocking a crowd again. The finale of their set is, of course, ‘Push It’, sung and arranged note-for-note like the original 1987 release and with just as much gusto, which is almost scary when you consider how many times they must have performed it.
At the polar opposite end of the musical spectrum, an expectant crowd packs into the Red:Bloc stage to see pioneering Warp Records duo Autechre. The room is almost pitch black, lit by the faint glow of emergency exit signs, the gloom filled by the absolutely cavernous drums, beeps and hisses from 3 full Funktion 1 stacks cranked to the maximum; for their part Autechre remain inaccessible, set far back from the crowd and hidden behind a mountain of equipment (which incidentally prevents the taking of any useable photographs).
At 1 o’clock on a Saturday night their slot is prime time, and the crowd wants to dance, if only Autechre would let them – the drumbeats are so irregular, and melodies so atonal, that only the rhythmically gifted can even find the beat, not that that stops people jigging around to it. I suspect that for a lot of people, myself included, seeing Autechre has been more an exercise in festival box ticking (because you wouldn’t want to be at a festival where they played and not see them, would you?), and call me a philistine but I have to admit that after 20 minutes I’m ready for something less experimental and more foot stomping four-to-the-floor. The experience has been stimulating on both the cerebral and physical level, but right now it’s just not hitting the spot.
After an intermission for rum and tomfoolery we return to the arena hyped up in anticipation of a mammoth three hour set from conscious junglist Congo Natty, who we find ruling the dancefloor in stern fashion with concentrated stare and heavy beard, bobbing only slightly in recognition of the frenetic drum patterns radiating from his turntables. Inexplicably his stage retinue includes a girl mixing drinks on a makeshift bar behind him, which are continually dispensed to the MCs and numerous other bodies on stage.
Twenty minutes into the first hour we pop out for some fresh air and a cigarette, to be told on returning that no-one else is allowed back into the arena. Apparently the line-up has been misprinted and Congo Natty will play for only one hour, more than half of which has now passed. Entry is closed, and no amount of impassioned bargaining or flashing of press passes will convince them to let us back in, so eventually we’re forced to make a crestfallen retreat.
SUNDAY 14/03
Unfortunately the aforementioned ‘designated driver with proper job’ wants to be back home at midnight tonight to make work on Monday morning, and given that programming starts in the evening we only see one act before we leave, the mighty Channel One Soundsystem.
Wanting to extract as much from our last set as possible, we arrive just after the doors have opened, to a practically empty room where 20 or 30 dub devotees sway to the sound. Unphased, selector Mikey Dread warms the crowd up gently with some vocal versions of greats like Bob Marley, Eeek-a-Mouse and Burning Spear, and slowly the punters filter in.
For someone playing at a dance festival, Dread seems to have his reservations about digital music as he kills the tunes and accusingly intones: “You see dis? Me nah play CD, me nah play laptop, me nah play iPod or mp3, me just play pure vinyl an’ dubplate”. From this point on though the music swells along with the crowd, becoming deeper, dubbier and irresistibly heavy, and when MC Ras Kayleb bounds from the shadowy back stage into the spotlight, chanting gravelly vocals in praise of Jah Rastafari, we’re powerless to resist the skank.
At 25 past the skank an insistent phone call from our driver hurries us along, so we snap out of our dub trance, bid Mikey, Kayleb and the Funktion 1 rig a reluctant farewell – and then it’s goodbye BLOC, hello real world.
Highlights
- Roots Manuva and Ms Dynamite rocking the stage on a Friday night.
- Crashing out into a clean, white bed.
- Recovering on a Saturday afternoon, reading Biblical quotes to one another from the Gideon’s Bible in the chalet.
- A fantastic programme of dubstep acts thanks to the Subloaded crew.
- Watching a tripping raver stare in fascination at the prizes inside an amusement machine, then try to reach his hand through the glass to get them.
- Rum and ginger beer, and lots of it.
Lowlights
- The slightly isolated, cliquey nature of the festival experience – individual chalets and a lack of proper chillout spaces means less meeting randoms and communal vibing.
- The price – sure it’s a weekend at Butlins with great music, but £150 is still a lot.
- Constant bag checks on the way into the arena, and a ‘no alcohol from outside’ policy.
- Having to go outside for a cigarette (in general) and missing Congo Natty because of it (specifically).
“Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom’’ (Proverbs 4:7)
Click here for an exclusive mix for Rockfeedback of artists who played at BLOC 2010
By - Corin Faife, Jack Howe
Artists in this article: Mungo’s Hi-Fi, Applebim, Peverelist, Martyn, Kode 9, Grandmaster Flash, Salt N Pepa, Autechre, Congo Natty, Channel One Soundsystem
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