A Salt, A Pepa, a wedding and a waterpark? Must be The BLOC.
The staff at Butlin's Minehead don't quite know how to react to the rave crew who have descended in their deviant, powerhouse hoards onto the faded, innocent seaside resort. They stare at us quizzically, clocking the fancy dress, the attitude, the ostentatiously large bottle of JD. Interactions are friendly but hilarious. And even when rules aren't being broken both sides act as if they are. It doesn't feel quite right...
The BLOC. They have come a long way for a festival so young, selling out every year of the four they've been in existence. Upscaling venues to the pretty awesome Butlin’s Minehead last year, their name is synonymous with freshness and the very best underground artists are showcased alongside established greats. The bottom line is the organisers have great taste in music, and they attract a crowd who know their shit. It’s all about raving.
The festival runs during the hours of darkness only. In some ways this is a blessing. We all know the strategic planning involved in getting the best out of an electronic music festival. The question which roams through your mind as you peruse the line-up... When to sleep? To blast on through the day or to try and get your head down as the sun peeps through your window and the laughter filters into your dreams?
So the fact that there is no music on in the daytime leaves you free to twat about in the waterpark guilt free, run around on the beach secure in the knowledge that you are missing nothing, drag your matresses out into the sun, make a pile then bounce as high as you can with your nearest and dearest in front of a camera. Obviously get no sleep whatsoever.
The best thing on Friday by a country mile is Ms Dynamite. Gone is her nasal pop, and her true colours as ruffhouse grime rudegirl are on full display. She holds the crowd in her palm and crushes the hell out of them with her excellent rapping. I'm seriously impressed. I saw her last in her Dynamitee-hee days and she's come into her own. Zinc joins her for the last few tunes and is brilliant – a great example of a producer who has neatly and successfully switched from DnB legend to bassline rudebwoy. High class. His tunes are upfront and rinsing – exactly what’s required after the slightly noodly Nathan Fake.
Adam Beyer plays some pretty heavy techno, and the crowd love it by all accounts. We follow it up with a class set from D-Bridge who ends on some serious old-skool hardcore that most people in the crowd are too young to have heard the first time round. This marks the end of BLOC night one.
The only problem I find with the chalet set up is you are removed from your fellow ravers during the 'down time'. In a festival in a field, you are one. Camp together, skank together, gaze at the stars together. But when there are actual, physical brick walls between you and your neighbours it’s more difficult to make friends – you are removed, and so is the communal living and banter of camping and intimacy of sharing weird experiences with strangers. Now I'm not criticising – when I finally roll in having a bed and hot water is exactly what's required – it just makes for a very different experience.
Grandmaster Flash plays a Saturday night set which, although brimming with big party hip hop tunes, is uninspiring. And then we all surge forward because the mighty Salt N Pepa are suddenly on stage in all their American girl glory.
BLOC is a very male-heavy festival. I wouldn't care to take a guess at the ratio but there evidently are not a great deal of girls out there who get off on rinsing underground tunes. However, every girl in the place is up front for this one, and it's suddenly a female big up, with Spinderella knocking out a series of girl power anthems. 'What A Man' gets every girl in the place singing at the top of her lungs, and when the first chords of 'Push It' kick in there is not a foot left on the ground. They've still got it these girls, voices like honey, attitudes in full effect, cooling their days, and at night – at least tonight – making us work up a sweat. Autechre do the business but the lack of lasers slightly detracts. The highlight set of the night is from Martyn and Kode9 back to back. An excellent display of two DJs complimenting each other's styles, taking the tempo up dropping it back again, working the crowd and showing just how cleverly they slip in and out of heavy bangers to more low fi numbers.
Sunday is 'The Big Day' but the fancy dress theme isn’t really seized upon as, I feel it would have been had the festival been on during the day. Skanking around a field, are you more inclined to dress up perhaps? Rather than going into a dark arena to dance around amongst the lasers. I clock a few people in toppers, and a brave bride in a homemaid dress but not much adherence to the theme. Bouncing around to the back to back bassline rinsers provided by Raffertie and Kanji Kinetic – two of the best new faces in the business – just wouldn't be as liberating in a wedding dress.
BLOC - I loved you. Butlins will probably take some getting over you but you rinsed it hard and I'll definitely be back for more. BIG UP YOURSELVES!
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