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Now in its twelfth year, Melt! Festival has grown ten-fold from 2,000 people back in 1997 to over 20,000 revellers in 2009. With so many people descending on Ferropolis, many via the train station in tiny Dessau problems were predicted but not encountered. The only issue all weekend turned out to be the cash points running dry. The site itself is an open-air museum of huge industrial machines dating from the mid-twentieth century. Draped in banners and adorned by strobes and lasers they provide a soulful backdrop to what is truly a unique festival.
Arriving on Thursday afternoon via a two hour train from Berlin - the campsite is well marked out with paths providing stumbling room for later in the night. The downside is bar the ‘Supermarket’ and Pizza Mario there is little to do other than drink. At the entrance there is a Red Bull bus which sees a number of bands and DJs take to the roof but the crowd is uninterested for the most part. Drinks in the supermarket prove expensive too. A Euro is added to each plastic bottle and repatriated upon return but in reality this just makes things quite pricey.
Waking up Friday morning the weather is miserable compared with the baking heat of the previous day and will only get worse throughout the day until finally at 3.30am the plug is pulled on all the stages and we are asked to return to the campsite. The rain is unrelenting and the organisers unfortunately have little option but to put a stop to proceedings. Before they do Cold War Kids had kicked things off on the main stage followed by Delphic – who had disappointingly replaced the Foals. Cassius they were not.
The Main Arena is sunken with stairs at the back and on the side providing a mini-stadium. The sound is decent but a bit tinny at times. Klaxons were to follow but it was Skream + Benga on the Red Bull Floor that took the plaudits. Relentless for an hour, his remix of La Roux’s ‘In For The Kill’ wiped the floor with La Roux’s own version in the Coca-Cola Tent a little later. Aphex Twin dominated the main stage as the rain started to fall and fall before Simian Mobile Disco twisted a packed Gemini Stage (it was undercover) into oblivion. Playing a thumping set that took in most of ‘Attack Decay Sustain Release,’ ‘Hustler’ and ‘Tits and Acid’ kept everybody dancing in raptures before a long trudge back to the tent.
Melt Festival 2009 in photos:
