How was BLOC Weekender?

[Si the Sigh]

I'm hearing very mixed reports...

Some saying it was awesome, better than last years event, and others saying heavy handed police / security ruined things, and the music wasn't all that.

Anyone from here go?

[kai_1]

I had a great time, although I wasn't @ last years so I can't compare the two... But there was some great music in the Tec Bloc fri night, especially Dave Clarke - while Sat night... Readioactive Man was very good and Juan Atkins was superb, a nice mix of music all round with some dark Dupsteb as well on the Sat, and a very varied set from Luke Vibert playing dnb, acid house and all sorts...

Unfortunately I couldnt stay for the sunday night so missed a load of acts I'd gone to see inc A Guy Called Gerald, Billy Nasty & Ben Sims... did any1 stay the Sunday night from here, if so how was it... I got the impression that by 5am Sunday morning a lot of people had started to disapear from the arenas after a messy 36 hours and wasn't sure the atmosphere was going to last through another evening?

[theledge]

Absolutely brilliant

Music: Dave Clarke on Friday was great, Beltram and Subhead on Saturday ripped it up. But the best was definitely saved until last - Sunday night was great with Billy Nasty, 303 Future, Ben Sims plus one or two others who I wasn't sure about their identity who were all fantastic

Acid house plus fancy dress is an inspired way to end the festival and it went down great. And the atmosphere all weekend was marvellous, lots of banter with all, tonnes and tonnes of fun...

The security were visible but more than friendly enough. There were some searches when entering the site, but the huge majority of people I chatted to passed through without problem. There were some random searches but if you were even remotely copped-on then it shouldn't have been any problem, let alone ruin the entire festival. Didn't see any police the entire festival. It was all over-hyped internet fear factor and nothing more.

I will be back next year with bells on.

[theledge]

Unfortunately I couldnt stay for the sunday night so missed a load of acts I'd gone to see inc A Guy Called Gerald, Billy Nasty & Ben Sims... did any1 stay the Sunday night from here, if so how was it... I got the impression that by 5am Sunday morning a lot of people had started to disapear from the arenas after a messy 36 hours and wasn't sure the atmosphere was going to last through another evening?

Not at all - the main room was absolutely packed, and everybody ripped it up! People dressed up to the nines leaping all over the place, lots and lots and lots of fun :lol:

[ritaheed]

i need to get ma self down to this!! seen vids from last yr in it looked great

[Sunil]

Another enjoyable year, but overall I did find the security staff to be very annoying, right from when we arrived in the gates on Friday until we left again earlier (old guys doing the gates were gents though). There's aslo a strong rumour that some security staff were looking for blackmail money in exchange for not handing drug busted punters into the police. Who knows, but I did hear that from a few people.

Basically, what Bloc put together was 1st rate.. but to really get it buzzing again next year I think Pontins in Hemsby is not the place to use. I heard it might be moving from there next year anyway, in which case the festival should benefit greatly.

I think I preferred last year, in that I didn't know what to expect and was more charged up, but I still enjoyed it this time and met lots of people that I probably wouldn't have seen again for another long time.. which was good.

Anyway, time to get asleep once and for all!

[Aratron]

sounds awful, like Butlins meets some Nevada Police Convention. Avoid.

[ampassasinbirmingham]

ouch!

[Jay Pace]

Cracking weekend.

Dave Clarke was ace once he finally started playing techno. In general - too much electro/breaks/dubste for my liking. Lost count of the number of people I met who claimed "unsigned dubstep producer" as their occupation.

Karl Bartos was fun, radioactive man pretty good. Juan Atkins was superb, and beltram was pretty brutal. My ears are still ringing...

Sunday the lack of sleep caught up with me and I missed nearly everything.
Really good atmosphere and some dead funny people.

[echodek]

had a great time. my american mate got searched pretty thoroughly by a security guard who said something like "count yourself lucky you aren't in Guantanamo"... which was a bit of a harsh dig. Other than that didn't notice any problems.

Musically, I though it was great. UR rocked, Monolake was the dog's knackers, Karl Bartoz was a pretty classy Kraftwerk covers band.

The real surprise for me was Legowelt... I don't really dig his productions, but his PA was a pounding chi-town jackfest. Ed Chamberlain, Convextion and Sleeparchive were aces too.

[teknofilth]

from reading posts on here and squatjuice my impression seems to be that people say Bloc is good if they went there for the music, and they say that it's bad if they went there to take drugs ;-)

[eyeswithoutaface]

Cracking weekend.

Lost count of the number of people I met who claimed "unsigned dubstep producer" as their occupation.


that's bizarre

why would you proudly claim to be unsigned?

or is that some cool Yoof thing?

[eyeswithoutaface]

did anyone catch Ed Chamberlain's set by anychance?

[mattboyslim]

did anyone catch Ed Chamberlain's set by anychance?yeah i'm keen to hear about this. maybe a recording is knocking about? heard Digitonal's set. Blissfull

[echodek]

i thought ed chaimberlain was really great. i don't know a lot about him... I only have one of his records that i can think of, but his set was really good. full of lush meaty basslines and really interesting grooves. got very hard towards the end, but not stupidly so.

would love to hear it again. apparently most of the sets were recorded, don't know whether they'll surface anywhere though

[wrong]

from reading posts on here and squatjuice my impression seems to be that people say Bloc is good if they went there for the music, and they say that it's bad if they went there to take drugs ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjKjBk9urUs


Thats pretty much the size of it ! Can't be arsed to type it out again so i've copy and pasted my 2 pence from no future:

Kind of fragmented compared to last year in that i didn't know where any of my mates were for most of the time... missed a few sets i'd wanted to catch..Black E (Cristian Vogel and Ben Pest) slammed it.. was definately a highlight for me, with an impromptu number at the end with cristian's wife singing/toasting that just rocked.. really positive set, crowd loving it and a VERY lively and smiley performance from the musicians.. could really see they were all enjoying themselves..
Karl Bartos was excellent.. a real gent and amazing to see and hear him and his right hand man (who WAS meatloaf).
The weather was abysmal which added to the bosnian estate vibe of it all..
Luke ('s anger) totally smashed it on friday/sat morning giving some much needed welly to the music, saw a bit of juan atkins.. didn't think it was anything too amazing, Simon Dexorcist's acid house/oldies set was excellent..i thought in general the sunday had the most relaxed vibe, being a kind of 'bonus' day.. criminally, i missed jason leach's set which i heard dropped jaws amongst the 'rum-diddy-oom-diddy' straight techno heads. lots of casualties, people being carried away by bouncers who i thought apart from a couple were pretty cool..As with the last bloc, it was great to see the 'uk scene' coming together with promoters and crews from absolutely everywhere in attendance and having a right good knees up.. 400 strong irish massive in the house keeping the vibe alive .. hmm, i might be rambling now but all in all.. bloody good show .

Have to say there was a bit of a 'ketamine presence' this year that i didn't notice last year so much... What i found a bit bad was the extent to which lots of people were getting themselves reaaally ****ed up and not leaving their chalets.. to me it kind of heralded the onset of the interest in doing drugs overtaking the interest in getting out and about and hearing/seeing the performances... :(

oh, and i thought sleeparchive was bizarrely boring,

Other things that rocked (according to others) were Jackmaster from glasgow, Red Snapper, Apparently Amon Tobin was amazing too... And i really enjoyed my set which luckily was just after they'd closed the other 2 rooms on sunday morning so had a full house - horaay :)

[maily]

Black E (Cristian Vogel and Ben Pest) slammed it.. was definately a highlight for me

likewise man, best thing all weekend i think. they were programming like mothafokkahs. jacking fun music =]

Phuture were wicked too, the bug was great particularly warrior queen. ed chamberlain was great, luke vibert was fantastic [half hour banging aphex twin segment in his set =] ton's of good music to be heard.
loads of nice people, and some bizzare sights were seen too.
can't fault it will deffo be back next year with more mates.

[RDR]

that's bizarre

why would you proudly claim to be unsigned?

or is that some cool Yoof thing?

its fishing innit.

[RDR]

Bloc weekender=me next year... watch out BOA massive i shall be showing you the circle.

for those who knw...

[Aratron]

Bloc weekender=me next year... watch out BOA massive i shall be showing you the circle.

for those who knw...

nice one, i think they've got a pink room next year.

[maily]

bloc cribs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHiaVD6SNNo

bloc vids: http://www.uncollected.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2496

[Sunil]

from reading posts on here and squatjuice my impression seems to be that people say Bloc is good if they went there for the music, and they say that it's bad if they went there to take drugs ;-)

Not quite. For me personally, I found many of the security really rude when they didn't need to be - and that had nothing to do with drug searches etc. The random drug searches though, really were excessive and for me took away a lot of the good spirit and vibe that was there last year. I'm sure they got lots of drugs alright, but I think the openess of the (relentless) searches, rather than doing it in a private, offside place... was a bit off; especially when quite a few people they were searching had nothing on them.

[Sunil]

Re: Black E... They were great, probably my favourite set as well. Got some of Vogel on the Friday which was good, but him and Ben Pest together were dynamite. They were really buzzing off each other and the vibe in the room; would love to catch them again.

[maily]

Re: Black E... They were great, probably my favourite set as well. Got some of Vogel on the Friday which was good, but him and Ben Pest together were dynamite. They were really buzzing off each other and the vibe in the room; would love to catch them again.

yeah, i was saying to our lass "let's book em for PT" then i found out who they actually were and thought again!!

cost+travel=stupid cost [probably]

hey sunil, sorry i never actually got to meet u, your pal dion tried to introdue us a couple o times but we never managed to track u down!

easy now.

[Sunil]

hey sunil, sorry i never actually got to meet u, your pal dion tried to introdue us a couple o times but we never managed to track u down!



Shit yeah, I met Dion at some stage and he said that to me - I guess I figured I'd bump into you before the end, although I never saw Dion after that I don't think, so it was always going to be difficult!

[massplanck]

hey sunil, sorry i never actually got to meet u, your pal dion tried to introdue us a couple o times but we never managed to track u down!
.


lol. You met Dion? How is he. Havent seen him in a couple of months.

[wrong]

yeah, i was saying to our lass "let's book em for PT" then i found out who they actually were and thought again!!

cost+travel=stupid cost [probably]



I think you might be surprised.. Ben lives in london and is a very nice guy who's all about the music, and cristian rarely plays these shores anymore so might be well up for it especially after the obvious fun he had during their set at bloc.. If you are thinking about it, lemme know and we can maybe arrange some flight sharing from barcelona as we'd put em on in london too.. -)

[mattboyslim]

I think you might be surprised.. Ben lives in london and is a very nice guy who's all about the music, and cristian rarely plays these shores anymore so might be well up for it especially after the obvious fun he had during their set at bloc.. If you are thinking about it, lemme know and we can maybe arrange some flight sharing from barcelona as we'd put em on in london too.. -)could be game for this too!

[maily]

could be game for this too!

once i've got dates for a bit later in the year i'll be intouch you too =]

[mattboyslim]

once i've got dates for a bit later in the year i'll be intouch you too =]

:thumbs up: