European - Summer Festival Guide

Highfield Festival – 2019!

August 24, 2019 by Sophie Bluestone

Friday

Most people’s “home festival” is the one near their city. Ours is a modest (30,000 guest) festival in the east of Germany. The weather was warm and muggy as we arrived. It was Friday afternoon, so most people had already arrived and pitched camp. Luckily, we spotted a spot in the corner of the campsite, introduced ourselves to our neighbours and erected our abode for the next three days.

As we headed to the arena for the first time, three-piece punk rock band Montreal was already warming up the crowds. All the way from the security queue to the front of the stage, people were singing along. A solid block of moshers and dancers were enjoying themselves in the first wave while many people sat further back, enjoying the afternoon sunshine. My personal favourite was a cover of “Katharine” by new wave band Steinwolke. Yonas, Montreal’s lead singer, admitted that they had previously got in trouble with the band for covering their song, but figured that a) the crowd wouldn’t tell on them and b) if the crowd sang loud enough the band couldn’t be identified on the tv coverage anyway, so we’re all good to go. The audience upheld their end of the bargain and belted out the chorus with all their might. The band invited two members of the audience on to the stage to hold a large digital clock to time the song “2 minuten”. They searched specifically for a woman and a man, you know, for fairness. However, they did not consider choosing based on height as the chosen man was much taller, leading to a somewhat wonky clock. Despite the diagonal timepiece, they performed the song in two minutes on the dot. The performance was the perfect icebreaker, getting us in the mood for the weekend to come.

The evening program started with the Swedish funk-rock band Royal Republic. The large neon lightning bolt and general Miami casino vibe were promising. What it did not prepare us for was the fact the band would walk on stage in red dinner jackets, white collared shirts and pearl necklaces. The lead singer’s impressive moustache completed the ensemble perfectly. Definitely an up and coming look. It took a single bar to get the whole crowd dancing. Lead singer Adam Grahn moved across the stage with fantastic flamboyance, directing the crowd with a drumstick he stole from the drummer. For the first part of the set, one song chased the other, leaving no chance of recovery. The continued dancing combined with the dry weather meant huge clouds of dust were kicked up, especially when the intro to “Full Steam Space Machine” played and everyone went crazy. In the run-up to the festival, Grahn had given decided on a record we could break together: most circle pits. According to his logic, three is the minimum number of people required for a circle pit. So theoretically, 30,000 people can make 10,000 circle pits. After telling everyone to get acquainted with their neighbours the band was off into “Stop Movin’”. Chaos ensued. Whether we really did break any records I don’t know, but we had a damn good time.

Over on the Blue Stage Von Wegen Lisbeth were getting ready to play. Two years ago, their stage décor could be described as kitsch suburban garden, complete with fake grass everywhere and plastic flamingo. This year, they started off with a dark canvas covering the whole stage. After a few bars of the first song, “Wieso”, the canvas dropped, revealing the band and their more standard tech and lighting set up. Having just released their second full album the set was a split between old and new songs. The older songs were greeted with a chorus from the crowd, almost taking over from the band. The lead singer was clearly overwhelmed by the response, recalling their last time here at two in the afternoon.

In complete contrast to the fun, bouncy, xylophone accompanied Von Wegen Lisbeth Feine Sahne Fischfilet kicked off on the Green Stage. Feine Sahne Fischfilet performances are always a dirty, high energy experience. Today’s show was no exception. The immediate, crowd-wide mosh pit made getting to the second row very easy. Within two songs, the band and various locations in the crowd had erupted with smoke flares, making the field look like an ongoing riot. Throughout the set, signal flares were set off in the crowd, keeping the high-octane atmosphere going. Lead singer Monchi had a crate of beer bottles with him at the edge of the walkway and frequently distributed these amongst fans. Famous for passing around a large bottle of peppermint liquor, this year they upgraded to pump dispensers they could spray straight at open mouths. There were two opposing reactions to this. Half the crowd wanted in and rushed forwards, because, you know, free alcohol. The other half backed off due to the combination of very sticky alcohol and the very low accuracy of the pumps. I was part of the latter. The band dedicated many songs to people working for political causes including sea rescue in the Mediterranean and people standing up to far-right groups.

Punters had two styles to pick from for their headliners on Friday night. The chilled rapper Cro, famous for always wearing a panda mask and the jazz-funk-reggae Jan Delay & Disko No.1. On the Blue Stage, Cro started off with the relaxed summer anthem “easy”. The spotlight casting his shadow on the huge, white, low poly version of his panda mask on stage behind him. The majority of the set had a laid-back feeling, with Cro sitting or kneeling on the edge of the stage, bathed in blue light as the full moon rose over the arena. The energy picked up for “Traum” and “Meine Gang”, with people dancing from the front row right back to the food stalls. The set ended with Cro standing on the giant panda head singing “Bye Bye” with galaxies projected behind him.

Straight afterwards, Jan Delay & Disko No.1 were starting on the Green Stage. The stage was covered in leopard print with pink outlines, somewhat reminiscent of Hamburg’s famed red-light district. The band played as Jan Delay introduced them from offstage before finally appearing himself. Dressed in a suit, sunglasses and a trilby, Jan Delay spent the show dance-walking across the stage, firing up the crowd. The band included a brass section and backing singers and worked various riffs into their jazz-funk songs including Red Hot Chili Peppers and Mackelmore’s “Thriftshop”. At one point he taught the crowd a “classic disco move”, two claps, two jumps to the right and the same again to the left. It worked surprisingly well, the crowd moved as one, like an oversized cha cha slide. The whole set was great, people dancing all over the arena, with some impressive moves on show.

As we walked back to our tent the gazebo-rave we had walked past 8 hours earlier was still going, or perhaps going again. We could hear the beach stage playing favourite after favourite and so we drifted to sleep accompanied by the soothing sound of Backstreet Boys “Everybody”.

Saturday

The overcast Saturday morning sky was threatening rain, but it was still very warm. After a decent breakfast of eggs and bacon, we threw ourselves back into the fray. Walking around the arena, the lively trumpet riff of Talco caught my attention. The Italian Ska-punk band had everyone dancing clapping and chanting. They won me over, so I stayed. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one as more and more people danced up and into the crowd during the set. A fun and loud way to start the festival day.

Monsters of Liedermaching provided a new take on the traditional “man with guitar” by going in the “6 men with guitars” direction. The band sat in a row of two benches, any number of them playing acoustic guitar and singing at any given time. What the crowd lacked in physical volume they made up for with vocal volume, singing along with everything. The band encouraged and celebrated audience participation, handing out cups of beer and promptly turning an audience thrown toilet roll into a fashionable scarf.

As we got lunch and sat to watch the Green Stage, Skindred played “Out of Space” as a tribute to The Prodigy who were meant to headline Highfield this year before the tragic passing of Keith Flint.

Die Orsons bought their hyperactive rap to the Blue stage accompanied by a giant inflatable moth-squid (?). The four frontmen had outfits matching the eccentricity of the show: one in a suit jacket, purple leggings and a green open-faced ski mask, one in a red suit and white shirt, one in matching, brightly patterned shorts and shirt and one in a bright pink jumper and tracksuits. The crowd jumped and moshed, fired up by the contagious energy of the band.

All members of Enter Shikari came on stage wearing matching grey-beige shirts and trousers. Within a few songs, lead singer Rou Reynolds was on a small platform at the first crowd dividers. After sitting on the bar while singing “Anaesthetist”, he ran into the crowd to dance with his fans.

On the green stage everyone’s dad, Thees Uhlmann & Band, played a homely, down to earth set peppered with new songs. Wine glass in hand, insisting we all text him when we get home safe, Thees Uhlman put his best Dad moves on show. He dedicated a song to Avicii, for whom he had a lot of love, and was overcome with emotion when the crowd started an impromptu chorus after “Zum Laichen und Sterben ziehen die Lachse den Fluss hinauf”. He even stopped the drummer, who had started paying the next song, to conduct the crowd.

The clouds darkened as we headed over to Bones MC & RAF Camora. The slow countdown on the screens interspersed with images of fast cars, pet alligators, guns and bling neatly summarised the theme of the show going forward. The 60 minutes of gangster rap culminated in fireworks and a giant animatronic alligator with glowing eyes taking up half the stage.

The penultimate band on the Green Stage today were AnnenMayKantertereit. Baby-faced with a voice like 60 years of whisky and cigarettes, lead singer Henning May’s soulful ballads were not what you would expect from the main stage at 9 pm. However, the band had paid their dues, working their way up the line up over the past years. The arena was packed for this mellow, laid-back set. A great warm-up for Thirty Seconds to Mars.

My personal highlight were the headliners of the blue stage, the hip-hop/pop duo SDP. Starting off behind a canvas, a remix of their new album opener (“Übertreiba”) playing, the band gave 110% from the moment the canvas dropped. Running and jumping across the stage, they teased out every last ounce of the crowd’s energy. Giant beach balls were released into the crowd for “Leider Wieder Da” and the set was accompanied by flames and fireworks. Things slowed down for a couple of ballads in the second half, both singers coming down into the crowd to sing “So Schön Kaputt”. The final song finished with sparks flying over the crowd and the band took their customary photo with the audience.

Jared Leto, frontman of Thirty Seconds to Mars came on stage for their headlining slot dressed in sparkly white robes with a long cape. I was expecting a costume change at some point, but he stayed with this “Glam-Jesus” look for the duration of the show. The first wave of the crowd was covered with flags, an unusual sight for a German festival. This was all well and good until a load of large balloons were released during “This Is War”. These promptly got stuck between the flag poles. It was amusing to watch, though probably not the intended effect. The same happened again with the myriad of animal pool inflatables that were thrown into the crowd a short while later during “Rescue Me”. There was a certain dissonance between the vibe of the music and the flamingos, unicorns and dolphins bobbing around in the crowd. At one point, Jared Leto was picking fans from the crowd to join him on stage before getting distracted by a red balloon hovering behind him on stage, presumably caught in the airflows on stage. Leto stood there mesmerised for a moment before returning to picking fans to join him. The show finished with a large group of fans running on to the stage behind him while he sang “Closer To The Edge”.

Sunday

Temperatures reached 30°C on Sunday, so we took a break at the festival beach, complete with ice cream and a swim in the lake.

Up bright and early, Schmutzki played a wake-up gig on the campsite at 11 am, which is as good as 6 am by festival standards. There were no amps but the gathered crowd sang everything, including the guitar riffs. They even managed to get a crowd surfer all the way around the little platform the band was on. That afternoon, Schmutzki returned to the Blue Stage, as did the crowd, which had now doubled in size. I did not expect to see the biggest circle pit of the weekend in the last 20 seconds of a show at four in the afternoon on a Sunday, but there you go. The backdrop was a small, red banner with the band logo, hanging at a jaunty angle behind the stage, perfectly encapsulating the band’s scrappy attitude.

After a brief afternoon downpour, the sun was back for Frank Turner & Sleeping Souls. The smartly dressed British folk-punk band addressed the crowd in near-perfect German and encouraged them to join in by jumping and clapping along. Turner explained that at past festivals he had the issue of explaining what mandolins were to punk crowds and what circle pits were to folk crowds. Luckily, the Highfield crowd were familiar with both and duly formed the latter. As per Turner’s instructions, everyone walked slowly at first before speeding up as the song got going. Very Fun.

Old punk favourites The Offspring attracted a huge crowd as the weather darkened. They played a couple of new songs including “It Won’t Get Better” and turned the arena into a field of stars during “Gone Away” as fans held up lighters and phones. As the set moved on to fan favourites such as “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)” and “The Kids Aren’t Alright”, lightning forked in the distance. The organisers declared a weather warning, but the party went on. Due to the slight overlap between acts on the two stages, a large section of the crowd started moving towards the Blue Stage during “You’re Gonna Go Far Kid”, dancing and singing along the whole way.

Just as Blue Stage headliners Fettes Brot began playing the thunderstorm arrived and the heavens opened. The performance was temporarily suspended, and the arena evacuated. The storm passed and the show was back on the row within 45 minutes. Fettes Brot put on a fun, high-energy hip-hop show backdropped by a selection of large neon signs. Like many other performers of the weekend, the band encouraged everyone to vote in the upcoming state election as well as join the upcoming Friday’s for Future event. In general, the festival had a very pro-democracy message, with large banners encouraging punters to vote and get involved with politics.

Sunday night headliner Steve Aoki’s stage design was simply a screen across the whole stage, continued across the front his decks. After the intro, he popped up in the centre of the stage and kicked off with “Bella Ciao”. Thanking everyone for staying through the rain he set off into a visually intense set including streamers and pyrotechnics. The screens created a seamless image across the whole stage with him in the middle and showed a concoction of weird and wonderful video clips. Alongside various 3d rendered visuals, he also sampled clips from Game of Thrones, Pokemon and Lion King. For the latter, he used the circle of life scene but with his face on Simba’s face. Aoki was visibly having a great time on stage, climbing on his decks and inciting a lot of audience hand waving. The show was a rollercoaster of emotions, with moving tributes to Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington and Avicii as well as Aoki throwing giant cakes into the audiences face during “Cakeface”. The rave EDM style was unusual for the Highfield festival, and the crowd was a little thinner than you would expect for a headliner. But those that stayed were treated to a psychedelic party to see off the weekend in exuberant style.

Highfield Festival is a perfect little festival with a huge range of acts. The lakeside setting and the international mix of bands make it a gem in the festival calendar, and one not to be missed.

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Hurricane Festival 2018 – Full Review!

June 10, 2020June 28, 2018 by Sophie Bluestone

Friday

Hurricane Festival is in the north of Germany, set in some fields in Scheeβel between Hamburg and Bremen. The current version of Hurricane Festival has been going since 1997, though there were two previous attempts of festivals in the area in 1973 and 1977. Hurricane sells itself as a mainstream/alternative festival, however, in recent years there has been more emphasis on the mainstream and less on the alternative. This year’s line-up is what I would describe as mainstream, however there are a few acts here and there that are showing the alternative past of Hurricane.

Friday started off wet and windy, as is the trend with most festivals at the moment, and was opened by the Hurricane Swim Team on the Green Stage early afternoon. The Hurricane Swim Team was created in 2016 when the festival was a total wash out, and is essentially a hype team that get the crowd grooving in even the most abysmal weather. Luckily, by the time they’d left the stage the weather had in fact improved and we were able to enjoy the sun for the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening.

We got to the second stage – blue stage – to see George Ezra perform in the afternoon light. Ezra has a stunning voice and it he proved that it was not just the studio doing all the work in post processing. He was chatty onstage, and (like a lot of the British and American bands) tried his hand a bit of German, to the glee of the audience. The cherry on the Ezra-shaped cake was definitely the small brass section he’d brought with him, it really added that extra depth to the performance.

Experienced punk rock band The Offspring took centre stage on the Green stage (main stage) on Saturday evening. They know how to keep tantalise the audience, saving their three most well-known songs until the end, including Pretty Fly for a White Guy and ending on Self-Esteemed to an audience that was easily two decades younger than them, if not more, which is a pretty good achievement for four shouty guys from California.

The blue stage was again graced with a talented vocalist, this time in the form of Hannah Reid of London Grammar. A far cry away from The Offspring, London Grammar definitely calmed the audience down rather than psyched them up. The mosh pits of Green Stage were replaced with gentle arm waving and head nodding.

Keeping in the UK-indie theme that the blue stage seemingly has had all day, the following band are none other than Two Door Cinema Club, who arrive onstage to a rambunctious welcome. Two Door Cinema Club are the first band that have brought an impressive set on stage, a set of LED squares with bright strobing lights behind, all of which is made more impressive in the dying light of the evening. The crowd happily bopped along to the music, enjoying the show in the dying light.

The green stage was again keeping its theme of emo-punk and rock, with the headline of the night Billy Talent. The band appeared on stage as the audience cheered and wooped, bassist Jonathan Gallant and guitarist Ian D’Sa started playing the introduction to ‘This is how it goes’ as Benjamin Kowalewicz burst on to stage to rapturous applause and started singing. He had so much energy on stage, dressed like an emo from the late noughties with his skinny tie, skinny black jeans and his converses. In fact, the whole band looked as if they were 15 year olds trapped in the bodies of middle aged men. They acted like it too. Jumping up and down and across the stage, swearing jovially at the audience ‘Welcome to Hurricane 2018 motherfuckers!’ shouted Benjamin after the first song, before launching in to ‘Devil in Midnight Mass’. The whole performance took me back to those angst filled days in high school, where we felt the world was ending and beginning at the same time, and that every song ever written about and specifically for, us. The nostalgia that came with watching Billy Talent was only amplified by the crowd, singing (and in some cases, screaming) along with the songs, as the band ricocheted from one song to the next. About halfway through the set Benjamin mentioned that their drummer – Aaron Solowoniuk – had been struggling with MS, and has been on hiatus since 2016. While Benjamin was telling the crowd this, he also mentioned that the band have been together for 25 years this summer, which is unbelievable. Arron was then introduced onstage as he made his way to the drums, and played with the band for the rest of the show. It was really great to see him playing again, and so obvious that he was thoroughly enjoying being back on stage after two years away. Aaron coming back on stage really gave the band more energy, and they turned it up to 100 for the rest of the show.

After Billy Talent’s finale, it seemed as if the entire crowd moved to Blue Stage, for final act of the night, German hip-hop artist Marteria. Now, I know those words don’t run together naturally, but stick with me here. My level of German is extremely basic (as I found out during a press-pass mix up that caused no end of trouble) but Marteria’s catchy lyrics and playful beats. As well as his skills on the mic he also brought to stage some of the most impressive and playful visuals of the evening. Later in the show he brought on his alter-ego Marismoto who delighted the audience with his high-pitch voiced and his more experimental music, straying from hip-hop and entering the realms of dubstep, reggae and EDM. With the first night of the festival finished everyone headed back to their tents ready to do the same thing all over again.

Saturday

The campsite was up and bustling by about ten on Saturday, helped by the festival workers driving around on quadbikes using their megaphones to shout ‘time to wake up’ across the campsite. I’m not sure if it was part of their job description but it certainly worked in getting the campsite awake and running. Pretty soon there were queues to the toilet and every other tent was playing flunkyball across the pathways. The campsite radio (provided by Delta Radio) was on blast throughout the campsite, via speakers and radios campers had brought with them, meaning wherever we went we had a surround sound experience of the camp radio. There seemed to be an endless game put on the by the radio hosts, which was to play the Cantina Theme from Star Wars, (or at least an excerpt of it) and, once it had finished someone – either one of the hosts or a punter who had been accosted somewhere on the campsite – would say ‘play that same song again’ and so on and so on. So much so it became the unofficial anthem of the campsite, and probably the weekend.

Hurricane festival is a lot smaller than most medium UK festivals, with only three stages all relatively close to each other. It means minimal walking between stages and the way that the stages have been positioned has been done with great care, as there is no overlap of sound when each stage has an artist.

Indie-pop act The Kooks took to the Green Stage on Saturday evening for a fun set. They’re still fresh from their ‘Best Of’ album tour, with Hurricane being their first festival of the season. Though they’re no strangers playing to big crowds – they’ve been around since 2004 – they have recently been touring as a warm-up act for The Rolling Stones. This hasn’t diminished their ability to get the crowd dancing, whatever the size. Though I was impressed that even a relatively light band such as The Kooks could get the crowd moshing. Lead singer Luke Pritchard danced around on stage with his tan-and-checked blazer and his skinny scarf, the embodiment of indie-brit-pop. The crowd were loving it and singing along to almost every track, which was pretty magical to listen to. The Kooks do have a new album out but didn’t fall into the age old pitfall of playing only their new stuff, they littered the set with classics as well as slipping the odd new song in now and then. They ended with two classics, Seaside and Naïve to the absolute delight of the audience.

Next up was Hamburg rapper Dendemann, who had a beat-filled set and had the whole crowd moshing along to his music. His music was good, though I’m sure I would have got more enjoyment out of it had I understood the lyrics – he uses a lot of wordplay so for a non-native speaker of German it can be a bit of a struggle to understand. I did understand when he said hello to the crowd and called them a town that certainly wasn’t Hurricane or Scheeβel. His drummer corrected him though and the crowd didn’t seem to care.

Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro have a solid fan-base in Germany and started off their European tour in Berlin early last month. Having last played Hurricane in 2010 they were due for a comeback. And the crowd were ready for it. Mosh pits left right and centre, the whole crowd was there for them. As per usual, all three members were shirtless, though frontman Simon Neil has got rid of the Jesus locks and gone for a cleaner, shorter cut, which if it wasn’t for the mass of tattoos and his roaring vocals he could be mistaken for a graphic designer, or someone equally ordinary. As always with Biffy, the show was intense and the hard rockers had all come out of the woodwork to head-bang their way through the set, as well as all the casual fans that sang along to their hits and mumbled along to the songs that had less radio-play.

Saturday was the first day we ventured to the Red Stage, to see Portugal. The Man. Now, I’m not sure what we expected but it certainly wasn’t what happened. They had a seven minute guitar heavy intro song played before they even came on stage. Once they were on stage the show really began. There had a projector projecting some spacey shapes and colours on the screen behind them. However, unlike most bands, Portugal. The Man had decided to put the projector in front of the stage, so each band member cast shadows throughout the set, changing shape and size as they moved around the stage. They started by playing a cover of ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ by Pink Floyd, which was an odd one to start with, however it really set the stage for the rest of their show, a spacey, guitar heavy extravaganza. After their first song some huge lettering came down on the screen behind them, declaring “We are not very good at stage banter so please enjoy these messages from the management, thank you for understanding”. Now, they certainly get points for ingenuity here, although it would have been nice to have a little bit of crowd interaction. As promised, periodically through the show more writing would appear behind them, such as “that is some bad-ass guitar playing” through a particularly gnarly piece. One thing I particularly enjoyed from Portugal. The Man was the fact that they had a very varied set-list. Starting with that Pink Floyd cover to get the crowd in the mood, before playing and older, spacey track that was guitar heavy and a wee bit light on the lyrics going straight through to ‘Purple Yellow Red and Blue’ (2013) and ‘Live in the Moment’ (2017), two more recent songs that have had more radio play. The audience were a bit muted compared to the other acts of the night, I mean, it is hard to mosh to electro-guitar solos played over light keys and drums.

Going from the Portugal. The Man to The Prodigy was a bit of a jolt. As ever, the Prodigy had a stunning set, fantastic lasers, the crowd was already hopping by the time we got there. The band has been touring for almost three decades and know their stuff. They haven’t played in Germany since 2015, so it was high-time they came back. The set was littered with classics and the crowd went absolutely wild during voodoo people. I mean, it’s The Prodigy, it’s hard not to dance like a maniac with those beats and the amount of pure, raw energy coming off the stage. After the show most people were danced-out and made their way to their tents, the younger and drunker punters also went back to the campsite, but only to enjoy the Motorbooty rave that was going on until 4am the next morning.

Sunday

Security has been amped up to 130%, we were frisked each time we entered the main field, and no bags were allowed unless they were see-through and all pockets had to be emptied and checked. This meant more than anything that there were queues caused by this bottle neck. The crowd spent most of the time in the queues singing various songs which either went in rounds or sped up as they went along. It was amusing the first few times, but when someone in the crowd yelled the first line for the sixth time in a row I did groan inwardly. Fortunately, by that point I was almost through the gates, so didn’t have to listen to a half-hearted rendition of eisgekühlter bommerlunder again.

Once through we headed to the blue stage to kick off the afternoon with a bit of Mighty Oaks. Their folk rock was forgetting everyone off to the right start, despite the persistent cold and rain. Lead-singer Ian Hooper switched from German and English throughout the set, which is unsurprising as the very international band – members from US, UK and Italy – are currently based in Berlin. They had the whole crowd swaying in unison, and at one point encouraged everyone to get on someone’s shoulders and the crowd suddenly got half as wide and twice as tall, as almost everyone in the crowd was on someone’s shoulders or holding someone and singing along. It was such a nice, inclusive atmosphere and a great start to the third and final day of the festival.

Late noughties indie-rock Franz Ferdinand bounced onto the main stage as the afternoon was slowly becoming the evening. Full of energy and full of hits, frontman Alex Kapranos jumped cross the stage as he belted out the lyrics. The audience were bouncy along happily, and singing along, smiling in spite of the rain.

One of the most lively shows of the evening was brought by second to last act on Sunday – Kraftklub. In the last five years Kraftklub have risen from unknown band to the next chart-topping must-see band throughout Germany. The show starts with four red smoke //bombs// going off within the crowd. We can’t see exactly how they’ve been planted but they’ve been concealed for who knows how long. Kraftklub then appear on stage as the banner that has been covering the stage has been pulled down, and as they start their opening number (Karl-Mark-Straβe) the crowd goes absolutely wild. Now, I knew it was going to kick off. Sometimes you can just feel it. Through the first half of the show I was stuck between two mosh pits, by the second half I had decided I was fighting a losing battle, and joined them full force. The moshing continued for the full show, and Kraftklub left to cries of ‘one more song’ as they left the stage. They had twenty minutes left of their set, so we naturally all expected them to come back on stage. They did come back. Just not on stage. They had what can only be describe as a mobile stage, about two meters wide and four meters long, on wheels and being pushed through the crowd. They sang ‘ich will nicht nach Berlin’ before telling the audience they needed to get back to the main stage. The most sensible way to do this was obviously to crowd surf. On top of this, it had to be a race. They prepped the crowd in front of them, and after the third blast from the airhorn, they dived in. They were all scrambling to get to the stage as fast as possible and one of the stage hands was waving a giant checked racing flag as they got to the stage and he announced the winner.

Headliners of the evening, Arctic Monkeys took to the stage under dark, moody lighting. Alex Turner’s slick-backed hair shining in the lights paired with the leather jackets gave the band a 50s vibe. The beat came in as ‘four stars out of five’ started playing and the start of the end of the festival had begun.

The set was dotted with shout outs to the audience, mainly ‘vielen danke’ (thanks very much – for the non-German speakers) and the dulcet tones of Tuner briefly introducing the odd song. However, audience interaction was minimal, this grown-up band a far cry from their ‘crying lighting’ and ‘fluorescent adolescent’ days. The set-list was a good mix of songs, but focused heavily on AM and Tranquillity Base Hotel + Casino. Which makes sense, especially if they’re trying to move away from their young, almost post-punk rock of the early days and centre their attention on the more polished sound that the more recent albums have encompassed. If I was to sum up their performance I would have to use that word again, polished. Technically, it was a fantastic set, the sound was amazing, the band were in-sync with each other, though I felt like there could have been a bit more (one-sided, as ever) conversation from the band, but this performance, like the two most recent albums seems to have matured from cocky rock to sophisticated, interesting space-pop, but keeping some of that same cheekiness the Monkeys are famed for.

This year Hurricane had an eclectic mix of bands, which, in a weird way seemed to complement each other. If you were not into the headliners you would always find something that would satisfy your wants. However, it would have been nice to see a few more female artists on the mainstages over the three days, though this is something that all festivals could work on, and not just an issue with Hurricane. Personally, I am looking forward to the announcements for the bands next year, and I, like most of the punters, am ready to do the whole thing again next year.