Viernes 11 Jul 2008, 17:01
Pentru un review in limba romana: B'estfest 5 iulie
I only went on July 5th, because there weren't any bands I wanted to see on any of the other days. On the 5th I wanted to see Kaiser Chiefs and a couple of Romanian bands I had heard on MySpace and seemed good: The Mood and Dekadens.
I went with letter_to_dana and it all started as a little adventure, because just a couple of hours before leaving she told me she only wanted to see Kaiser Chiefs, so I got really upset, but eventually we agreed to see the Romanian bands too.
Doors opened at 2pm, but the first Romanian band was on at 4.15pm so we left at 4 and arrived at Romexpo at about 4.30pm. We were able to listen to the last 15 minutes of Dekadens' performance, and we liked it. They sounded good. There were very few people there, trying to hide in the little bit of shadow in front of the stage. But the truth is it was a hot day, probably around 30-35 degrees, so dancing wasn't exactly the first thing that came to people's minds.
Then The Mood came on, with a slightly bigger audience and actually a few people willing to dance. I liked them. I was always pretty skeptical about Romanian bands, but these 2 proved me there are good bands around here, you just need to look for them a little bit.
The festival had 3 stages. The first one was very close to the entrance and the other 2 were next to each other, but pretty far from the first one. We didn't care about the first stage, because none of the bands we were interested in were playing there. After the Romanian bands we were going to have a big break until 10pm when Kaiser Chiefs were on, so we decided to walk a little and check out the place. We had something to eat and to drink and then we sat on this cute little arrow-thingy from ClickNet and we started looking through the magazines we had received earlier. We could also hear The Hot Stewards playing, but we were really not interested in them. I had no idea who they were and I was annoyed that they only played covers. I only found out at home that they are actually a cover band.
A little bit before 8pm we decided to go to the Kaiser Chiefs' stage and wait, while listening to Manic Street Preachers, who were on at 8pm at the stage next to us. I was never very fond of the Manics, but they sounded very good and I really enjoyed listening to them. They played Umbrella, a song I HATE, then Your Love Alone Is Not Enough, which I like, so it was good in the end. I don't know what else they played, because, as I said, I am not a fan. It was great after all, there were a lot of people and they were singing and dancing and I think the boys enjoyed it too.
Then at 10pm Kaiser Chiefs came on. The show was brilliant. The crowd was crazy for them, they were dancing, singing, screaming.. I never imagined there were so many people here who liked them. It was so much better than I'd thought it would be. Ricky did all his usual tricks and the crowd loved them. They also played 3 out of the 4 new songs, Never Miss A Beat, You Want History and Half The Truth. We also had fireworks and Ricky seemed to love them. He kept telling us to turn and see the fireworks, then he showed them to Whitey. It was great and I think they really enjoyed it too. Instead of saying goodbye, Ricky ended the show with 'See you next time'.
I haven't been listening to Kaiser Chiefs for some time now, but I really enjoyed the show. They are a great live band and I think that even people who don't like them can enjoy themselves at their shows. They're good.
The biggest flaw of the festival was the sound. It was too loud and I got home nearly deaf. My ears only recovered the next day, some time during the afternoon. But it turned out well. Better than I'd expected.
If they manage to get My Bloody Valentine here next year, I'll totally love them *hint for whoever's in charge of the festival*.