FiberFib 2006

FiberFib you ask? Stands for Festival Internacional de Benicassim, which is the music festival we recently went to in Spain. Benicassim is where it was held, which is on the coast about an hour north of Valencia.

First thing to comment on is - man it was hot! OK, it has also been pretty hot in London, but this was another step up again. The temperatures were consistently in the high 30s and the nights were incredibly warm. So we packed pretty light. Because of the heat, the music festival actually ran through the night, typically starting at about 7pm each day and going through to around 7am - with the big acts each night coming on at around 1.30am. This meant we also had plenty of time during the day to hang out by the pool and lay on the beach. But what it also meant was that there wasn't a lot of sleeping going on - I think I got the grand total of 10 hours sleep over the four days I was there!

The festival itself was very good. It didn't have some of the big names it has had in previous years and had quite a few old school acts (Madness, Depeche Mode, Morrissey). However, Franz Ferdinand were brilliant, as were The Kooks, who are my band of the summer. We also spent a lot of Friday night in the Silent Disco, which was classic. By way of explanation, the Silent Disco was a small marquee where you were given a pair of headphones as you entered. You had the choice of listening to two DJs as it was quite humourous looking around and seeing people dancing to completely different tracks. Even better was taking your headphones off when a popular song was played and listening to people singing to themselves. Here's a picture below of us in the Silent Disco along with a bit of festival action from Jabs and Fi.
Apart from the Festival, we also had a good time chilling out during the day. This usually took the form of laying by the pool at our camp ground (where we stayed in bungalows that in another country might be called a sauna - who builds with wood in Spain!); or heading down to the beach - where the Med was similar to bath water.

By the end of the 4 days the twelve of us were all looking the worse for wear and in need to a decent night's sleep and a good shower. We stopped off in Barcelona for a last top up of tapa's at a bar Anna and I found when we were last there in January, and eventually arrived back home at 1.30am. But it was all worth it as it was a fun trip.

For some more pics, click here.