**Live videos from the festival will be embedded once they become available on the Tube**
_____Following 22 days of gruelling train journeys, repeated alcohol overkill, probably the most high-octane fun I’ve ever had, and then another gruelling train journey, I was pretty tired. So one would imagine a music festival would be the last thing I needed. Sure, we’d already ticked most of the festival boxes: slept in a Mongolian tent, lost all sense of personal hygiene, adopted the infamous “Carbs and a Berocca” diet, and, of course, chundered everywhere. But then again, one hasn’t been to Festival Pantiero.
___What this festival offers is four nights of music, with each night hosting four bands, of which on average you will have heard of 1.66(recurring). The festival is staged on the roof of Cannes Palais des Festivals, overlooking one of the prettiest beaches in the south of France. So, in the words of a friend of mine, it’s a case of lads and beach during the day, birds and tunes at night. So down to business, which, although I would love to talk about the birds, unfortunately is the tunes…
_____Our first set of the festival came courtesy of the delightful Local Natives. Despite the best of intentions and illegal downloads, I was not yet fully acquainted with all of their music, with Airplanes and half of Sun Hands being the exceptions, so I was pretty much as in the dark as the curled up French guy KO’ed on the ground beside me. However, I was conscious, which meant I was still perfectly able to enjoy the songs of theirs I didn’t know. Which I did, thoroughly, which left me kind of wishing I hadn’t listened to Placebo on practically every single train journey during the holiday and made a bit more of an effort to get into Local Natives. Still though, awesome gig.
___Following them was Poni Hoax, a band I had made the effort to get into beforehand. I had found them to be very hit and miss on record, but thankfully live they were much more hit than miss. As expected, Pretty Tall Girls and Antibodies were highlights on the night.
_____Headliners on the first night were indie rock band The Raveonettes, who produced an impressively average set, almost all of which I have now forgotten. Except for That Great Love Sound, I love that song for some reason…
_____Thursday night saw a slight change of mood, with things moving… Eastern as Omar Souleyman took the stage. At the time I was on the beach speaking sub-standard French to some delightful native girls, but the music travelled sufficiently over the cool Cannes night air for me to hear that I wasn’t missing much. One song to be exact, which was played under several different titles on repeat for the duration of the set. Then came The Rapture. And my god were they good.
_____The best part about their set was that they didn’t just do the classics well, extremely well even, but they did everything extremely well. Obviously Get Myself Into It was incredible, Echoes was superb, and House Of Jealous Lovers remains to this day to kick ass, but there were numerous other absolute gems in there: No Sex For Ben left us all gobsmacked as to where the fuck that riff came from; and Whoo! Alright - Yeah...Uh Huh plagued my brain with its lethal catchiness for the rest of the week. The best set of the weekend was rounded off by lead singer Luke Jenner coming down to greet his fans, and, well, we’re basically besties now.
_____The third night hosted the two bands which most of Cannes had been waiting for, the dangerously acclaimed duo of Two Door Cinema Club followed by Foals. Not too shabby. The crowd on this night was phenomenally big, so much so that it probably would have shadowed those from the past two nights combined. And boy were they hoppin’. Two Door Cinema Club were positively sublime, a set boasting the likes of Something Good Can Work and Undercover Martyn seemed all but perfect until the last song rolled around, at which stage it became all perfect, set-closer I Can Talk probably my favourite song of the festival. My second time seeing the Northern Irish lads only confirmed for me just how big a deal these guys are. Watch this space te feck.
_____Already absolutely shattered and dripping with sweat, I wasn’t sure if I could take anymore, but the sight of Yannis walking on stage to close the night jerked the crowd into gear again, and by the time Cassius rolled around, I was sure I couldn’t take anymore, and although I knew further exposure to such ridiculously good music would impact on my health, I stayed and rocked out for the duration of the gig. Good decision me, for the gig was one of their best, with the Oxford heroes spitting out brilliant renditions of Balloons, Spanish Sahara, and Electric Boom.
___A quick snippet of information for those of you interested in French fashions; I’m saddened to inform you that they remain en retard relative to the rest of the world, as they have yet to realise that Miami is in fact one of the best songs Foals have ever released - the crowd bizarrely seemed not to know it. Regardless, it was awesome. They closed in their usual taste, Two Steps Twice providing the perfect ending to what was a truly fantastic night.
_____The final night of Pantiero was to be hosted within the Palais itself, instead of on its roof as usual, which suited the dance theme to the night, but unfortunately, I was unable to attend. It would seem after battling a chest infection for the duration of the weekend, Foals’ aforementioned impact on my health became too much, and I was forced to sit the closing night out. To be honest though if I was to miss one night, it would have been the last, there wasn’t an awful lot on offer. There was however, a certain Zombie Nation, and although I knew I was doing the right thing sitting at home with my Maltesers trying to decipher The Bourne Identity once and for all, I was figuratively as well as physically sick in the stomach knowing I was missing Kernkraft 400.…
_____And so that was it. Four nights of music, some good, some not so good, and then some absolutely fricking insane, over. It’s hard to explain the Pantiero experience, because it’s not a festival really, in the sense you wouldn’t really associate it with the Oxegens and Picnics of the world, but it’s more than a concert itself, in that there’s four of them, and the crowd aren’t as dicky.
___Basically, it’s just really good fun. There are few greater feelings than that you get when drinking a bottle of desperados on the beach listening Quadricolour warm up the crowd for Two Door Cinema Club, so I’d recommend that if any of you have fifty euro to spare next summer, consider Pantiero. Sun, beach, music, and French girls. That fifty euro will never be better spent…
No comments:
Post a Comment