BLOC ’10 : Don’t Leave Me Hanging

This post is a little out of date as it’s now been 3 weeks since BLOC ’10, but it was never gonna appear the week after and I sort of forgot to do it since. But anyways, here is a scatter shot round up of what I caught over the weekend. As with any festival with such a stong line up I probably missed as much good stuff as i saw while some underwhelmed and the odd bit really surprised.

Thursday & Friday

I decided seeing as I had no work on Friday that I may as well avail of the offer of arriving on the Thursday night before the festival kicked off properly. There was one room of music put together by the Plex crew from London but, eh, it was finished by the time I rolled into Minehead. So, Thursday night ended up being the strangest of anomalies for Bloc; getting to bed at a reasonable time, as I opted out from getting too “involved” on the first night. Getting up bright and early at the festival site was an odd experience. A fair few people had arrived on the Thursday night but there was still an eerie calm on site as I walked around on the Friday morning. Previous years I’d landed in on the Friday evening/night with things in full swing, and it was just a case of diving in, head first. Seeing the place all quiet was, for some reason, sort of disconcerting. The calm before the storm made me nervous instead of excited about what was gonna kick off. Viewing the Bloc site through sober eyes is something I’m gonna pass on from now on 😉

It did mean though that I was there for when the music kicked off  in the Fernchurch Dome at 5 o’clock. This little space that looked like a hut made out of tinfoil was notable for having visuals  projected on its ceiling, and when I arrived in it was certainly captivating everyone. No one was dancing, but instead gawking at the ceiling. Kicking things off were 2 Djs from the Rebel Intelligence crew who quickly distracted me from the ceiling by dropping a tonne of old school electro funk bombs. After 20 minutes or so the dancefloor started to move some and it was a really nice kick off to the weekend, musically. I didn’t make it back into the dome at any other stage of the weekend and as impressive as the set up was the visuals during the RI guys had pretty much nothing in common with the music, a problem I have with a lot of VJing.

The next few hours was spent hooking up with people arriving, grabbing some food and what not before it was time to head in to the Tec:Bloc for a sweet double header of Joe Hart followed by Placid, who both delivered sterling sets of acid and Chicago house which  upped the atmosphere that little bit more. After that there wasn’t a huge amount of must-sees for me on the Friday night as a perusal of the timetable showed that Bloc had managed to cram a massive amount of stuff in for the Saturday night instead, including a clash of the titans with Autechre and Model 500 playing at the same time.

It’s probably best to say now, instead of constantly repeating myself, that a large amount of time was spent this year in various parties in the chalets. I didn’t catch a massive amount of music this year due to clashes (there was a lot, though not something I’m gonna complain about as it is inevitably gonna happen) or being in said chalets. It’s one of the big attractions of the party – outside of the music  –  that you don’t have to camp and instead get to run riot around comfy little gaffs, and there is constantly a party going on somewhere, so at times it can nearly be a bit of effort to actually get to the arenas.

Back to Friday night; Omar S was the main attraction for me, but before that I skipped down to catch about 20 minutes of Neil Landstrumm in Tec:Bloc where there was an electric atmosphere, but his set left me that  little bit  cold. It was like a pastiche of all things techno, jumping from thumping 90s techno to dub to ravier sounds and what not, pretty much every 2 minutes. In a way it was impressive but it didn’t hold my attention for too long. Nu-Disco boy Lindstrom was doing a live set before Omar S in the Centre:Bloc, which was like a disco version of Landstrumm, in that it ticked all the disco boxes but yet didn’t really excite.  Mr Alex O. Smith followed with what could have been one of the highlights of the weekend. After kicking off with a single hip hop cut he swiftly moved on to some superb deep and techy house cuts but sadly he was let down by the worst sound I encountered all weekend. It nearly sounded like there was a limiter on the rig as many of the kick drums had that dampened feel to them and the general flatness of the sound meant I found it difficult to really get into it, which was a shame. The likes of his own “Psychotic Photosynthesis” and “Buckle Up!” by Big Strick should have sounded immense but instead were somewhat muted.

The mood changed from one of disappointment to that of utter surprise with  my closing set of Friday night.  Initially I decided to head into see Dj Rush for a bit of a laugh (snigger, even) as his mindless schranz is not something I’ve had an urge to see in the past, but how wrong was I. Yes, it was mindless and relentlessly pounding but it was also a huge amount of fun. The concoction of a rabid crowd, thundering techno and Rush’s own charisma made it one of the highlights (and certainly the least expected) of the weekend.  The downside was I missed D:Bridge and Instra:Mental, but I wouldn’t have traded that hour and a half of madness for anything else.

Saturday

After finally getting some sleep on Saturday afternoon/evening I awoke at around 8pm, forced some food into me, watched an Indian take on James Bond featuring a midget Secret Agent – brilliantly titled “For Your Height Only” – and generally limbered up  for what was gonna be a hectic, hectic night.

The following 2 – 3 hrs of music was amusingly contrasting. First off I headed down to catch some of the Human Shield party that was going on in the Pub:Bloc. Casionova, he behind all things Magic Waves and Cyber Dance had the small crowd going nuts with a brilliant hour of Italo hammers. One couldn’t have asked for a better start to the night. For all the big names playing in the proper rooms it was again one of the small, relatively unknown guys who kicked out the jams properly.  Just in case all the italo got us that little bit too giddy once that finished it was time to run over to Tec:Bloc to catch Mark Ernustus of Basic Channel doing a Rhythm And Sound set, with Tiki Man on MC Duties. I’m far from being a Dub connoisseur but Ernustus delivered a solid mix of quite heavy and crisp, techy Dub and Tiki Man had a great presence. They only had an hour slot which I thought was a bit slim; I would have preferred if they’d been given a 2 or 3 hour slot earlier in the evening, it would have given one more time to settle into the groove. But I had just come from an hour of punching the air to Italo, so maybe the contrast was that little bit much.

Quickly moving on, wandering through the main Pavilion , it was decision time. Salt N Pepa or Flying Lotus. Can’t say I ever thought I’d be standing in the middle of a holiday camp making that decision, but there you go. That’s Bloc for ya. We trumped for Salt N Pepa. And it was, in a similar fashion to Dj Rush, a good dose of silly fun. There was no room for any snobbery – there rarely is at Bloc – and more retarded dance moves were pulled outta the bag. And yes, they finished with Push It and it rocked.

After missing most of Anti-Pop Consortium – whatever about the rest of the set I didn’t see, the closing 15minutes was killer – Model 500 were next up on Centre:Bloc. So as not to cause any undue stress slap bang in the middle of the fest I’d decided on Thursday that I was gonna choose them over Autechre. While mixed reports stemmed back from the Ae show I was more than satisfied with Juan and the guys. Classic after classic pumped through the system with the standout for me  being a relentless “Game One” in which Mike Banks took control half way through layering some stunning keys over it. Having seen the show twice now I wouldn’t be in a hurry to see it again simply for the reason that it’s basically the same show rolled out but it tipped my first time seeing it (in The Village in Dublin) due to the better sound and the fact we  weren’t sandwiched in on the dancefloor either.

The second that wrapped up it was straight over to Jak:Bloc for Alden Tyrell who, unlike Model 500, didn’t just roll out the big hits from his back catalogue. Ok, Love Explosion and a couple of others were in there but he finished off on a heavy acid/Chicago tip and it was more heads down than hands in the air for the most part, which was fine by me. (That’s musically speaking by the way, my body was doing all sorts of flapping about during it)

Saturday night closed on a bit of a bum note for me, with Surgeon and Planetary Assault Systems finishing things off in Centre:Bloc. While things did start getting a bit hazy around this time  I just found both sets to be somewhat flat. Surgeon didn’t do himself any favours by playing The  Vamp by Outlander , a track I hate more than many, but it’s a rare day when he disappoints. And his A/V show left  many perplexed as anything else. After the PAS show in Dublin in October my expectations for the final hour and a half of Saturday were sky high, but Mr Slater was to be much more restrained this time around. Maybe he thought that he needed to keep it deeper due to his later slot, but I would have much preferred him to have come out with all guns blazing.

Sunday

The previous 2 years at Bloc Sunday night has been messy. Very messy. They cut back on the music, but the atmosphere tends to get fairly crazy. This year though I think myself and my crew were starting to reach burnout point and there wasn’t the same impetus for one last hurrah, come Sunday night. While there were fun reports coming back from Bass Junkie & Dexorcists b2b set of old school electro there was pretty much nothing else on that could get me to move from my chalet. There was a slim amount on offer and I didn’t get moving until it was nearly time for Derrick May to close things off. I got in to catch twenty minutes of Joris Voorn being absofuckinlutely abysmal, rounding things off by doing horrible things to Plastikman’s “Spastik”. Unfortunately, after that  Derrick May didn’t bring his A game  . Like PAS the night before Del Boy was too restrained for my liking. Even when he dropped a cut I really love  – The Journey by Norm Talley – it seemed ill-fitting for midnight on the closing night of a festival. I left after an hour.

And so another Bloc came to a close. I’m left with the same impressions I had last year of it. I doubt there is a better electronic music festival out there, and considering it’s now in its fourth year it really has managed to keep the same vibe it always has, great people, a really relaxed and friendly atmosphere (a little bit more so this year than last) and enough good music to keep nearly everyone entertained for 3 days. While I presume that they had a lot of clashes on Saturday night so there wouldn’t be the same problems with queues that they had in 09 it meant that Sunday was very light on the ground for interesting acts, which was a bit of a shame as it meant the party ended without that little bit of bedlam we’ve all come to love – but regret on Monday morning 😉

Finally, gotta give a shout out to my crew, who kept the chalet madness going solidly from Friday evening till the very end of the weekend. Not once was I left hanging.

Also, thanks to Matt Avent  for the photos, more of which you can see here