Beni in the eyes of C Bear.
7 days of camping, but I survived.
Oh, sweet Jesus, what I’d do to be back at Beni at the moment. You know when you’ve been thinking about something, and waiting for it come, and you’re constantly imagining it at it’s best, and often you’re let down. This was not the case at Benicassim. Apart from a few minor changes it was exactly how I imagined it. Of course, I was a festival virgin, and above everything else I was mostly concerned about how, the little princess that is me, was going to survive 7 days of camping, but I’m alive and I’m going to share.
The flight up was mad, it was filled with Maltesers.
Being only 17 I had to have a guardian, and I chose Fatgold-ee Thom. He took care of me alright, he bought me a neon yellow worker vest so he can see me at all times and a collar and leash (with added poopie bags) to keep track of me. He also didn’t let me smoke or drink and was with me at all times 
. I swear. The flight up was mad, it was filled with Maltese all heading to Beni, and we were all ready to start the mentality as soon as possible. Above being travel sick, I’m also petrified of planes, so over the drowsiness of my travel sickness pills, my friends were giving me sips of their drinks to calm me down. Needless to say I was quite gone and was walking up and down the aisle constantly bugging everyone who was sleeping and at one point I even ended up doing a split…
We spent the first 3 days before the festival, getting drunk
Once we were there, aside from the insane que in the sun for our wristbands (which by fault I got a ‘4 Dias’ one and not an under 18 ‘Especial’ one) and the killer walk, we were all good to go. The group I was with, which was about 25-30 maltese, took over a massive section and hung up a couple of maltese flags to show whos boss. We spent the first 3 days before the festival, getting drunk (On 10 Euro per litre bottles of Smirnoff), trolling the campsite and checking out the parties around us. We ended up partying in the pathways of the campsite, in the bar with loads of topless men (ahhh yeah…). We even witnessed a fat guy called Steve begin to strip… but it proved to be too intense for some people and they walked away. We met Gay Josh, who fell in love with my friend (dude of course) and I fell in love with him. I managed a bubu on my knee because I was filming Paul giving frights to people on the campsite, and became VERY fond of this Italian woman and a dude called Bruno *wink wink*
Day one of the festival and I was already hoarse.
The 20 minute walks where highlights, and once we walked in, my breath was taken away. Me, Julia and Miki, stuck together on the first night, and we nearly died. We laughed so much that our sides hurt, Ju nearly threw up on the grass at a point she couldn’t help laughing. The first day also opened my eyes to how many special people there are in this world. From the guy who let me put a cigarette out on his arm, to ‘I love Paris’.
The Beni Hurricane
Then came the infamous Beni Hurricane, which wasn’t a hurricane, but thats a Po‘tay’to/Po‘tah’to thing really. That was rather fun. I got blinded by the dust and got pissed on. Sweet. Saturday came, and was probably my favorite day of the entire festival, purely because of the mood I was in. Elbow where fantastic, almost too fantastic. I remember standing in the crowd, going mad to Franz Ferdinand cos they were playing all my favorite songs, and when they started playing ‘Lucid Dreams’ I turned to Miki and went: ‘Awh I have a feeling they won’t play the extended electro bit’, and they did, and boy did they do it well. I just stood there in awe. Then we rocked it out like mad to 2manydjs, which led me to dance on a skip with a guy who I made friends with over our booty shaking abilities. At a point they played ‘Zombie Nation’ and you could hear, all over the festival,
maltese screaming ‘U x’alla zobbna, u x’alla zobbna mil-kullhadd…’, I felt so incredibly close to home.
Afterwards we moved on to Aeroplane who played ‘Chase’ by Giorgio Moroder from our favorite film ‘Hot Rod’, then front row centre for Steve Aoki, who by the way is a bloody psycho, led us to watch sunrise with a bunch of strangers who grew to love each other over night, and caused me to have blood spurted all over my arm. Ahhh the fond memories. I calculated that on this night I was constantly dancing for 12 hours.
The final day
It had arrived and everyone was in a more relaxed mood. I fell in love with the lead singer of Friendly Fires, and Lykke li, who covered both Kings of Leon song ‘Knocked Up’ and Lil Wayne’s ‘Amilli’ amazingly, the Killers brought out the 14 year old girl in me and Birdy Nam Nam made me want to crouch down on the floor and cry. We woke up the next morning only to realise that all the great music, easy peasy friend making and wonderful partying was over. The days of letting loose and acting in ways you wouldn’t usually where out of the window.
It was really sad packing our things up, but we were off to Barcalona where, story of my life, I was to lose my camera and get hit by a bike.
But never mind that. So I guess I can safely tell you that my first festival experience was success. In an a suprising turn of events (Sarcasm heavily implied) I came back with swine flu. But that was okay, I needed the rest. I really, really needed the rest.
Until next time amigos!
Beni Hurricane and Swine Flu Survivor,
Clare.
Leave a Reply