After what feels like a 58 hour drive up the spine of Wales (also known as the A470) Gigwise finally makes it to a sun-drenched Wakestock. Now in its seventh year, Wakestock has come a long way from its debut in 2000 where only 800 people made the trip up to Abersoch in North Wales.
Friday is predominantly seen as the dance day, although the addition of Reggae stalwarts Aswad was an odd choice to the line-up. What Gigwise finds confusing is the amount of people who don’t bother going into the venue and instead just listen to awful Happy Hardcore in their cars. You don’t have to spend £45 to do that on top of a mountain, no matter how many disco biscuits you’ve munched on. Trevor Rockliffe laid down an ear-deafening slice of Techno whilst two dancers either side of the stage gyrated filthily. Superstar DJ Carl Cox was in his usual buoyant mood, meshing together an eclectic set of big beat, funk and tech-house music.
Revellers were throwing all kinds of inane shapes, with most dressed in the sort of attire that looked more suitable for a London super club than a disused field. Saturday saw all attention turn to the Wakeboarding. British rider Dan Nott won his second title in the space of three years with a series of breakneck flips and tricks. Unfortunately, Gigwise turned up at the wrong Wakeboarding menu so spent the afternoon on the beach getting burnt to a cinder.
Back at the main site in Penrhos, the music bill had a distinct Welsh flavour to it. Current media darlings The Automatic offered up the most bizarre cover of the weekend with Kanye West’s ‘Gold Digger.’ Lead singer Rob Hawkins swapped his bass for a jazz flute while synth player Alex Pennie bellowed out his raps to comical effect. The band closed their set with the unofficial anthem of the weekend ‘Monster’, especially popular around the main campsite at 4am.
As the evening went on, it became a toss-up between seeing Feeder or The Zutons. With Feeder currently plugging their Singles album, the set-list ran in a predictable fashion with meat and potato anthems such as ‘Buck Rogers’ and ‘Just A Day’. The Zutons’ crowd soon swelled after the conclusion of Feeder’s set with fans barging their way into the main tent.
The Merseyside five-piece raced through a dynamic set of tunes and wrapped up the weekends proceedings with the surf-like pop of latest single ‘Valerie’. Wakestock continues to raise the bar for several other festivals and due to it’s unique marriage between surf culture and music, these wakeboarders will always be onto a winner.
