RockNess Music Festival 2010

Jim King Blog 'The Best RockNess yet'

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Too tired to type much but WHAT A GREAT WEEKEND!! This year’s festival has to be best Rock Ness in my opinion.

I felt a bit rusty on the Friday with it being the first festival of the season for everyone but I thought Friday was great. Crystal Castles kicked it off massively, Friendly Fires performed really well and then there were 2 huge sets from Pendulum and Fatboy Slim. I thought Norman’s production looked amazing.

Saturday was all about Boys Noize in the Annie Mac Arena which was a roadblock. Loads of other DJ highlights from Saturday included Club 75, 2manydjs and Benji Boko who filled in for Zane. Aphex Twin was pounding in Clash on Saturday night but I can’t say overstate how unbelievably good I thought Leftfield’s performance was. It has to be one of the best live performances I’ve ever seen from an electronic band and I know its controversial to say to Rock Ness punters but I thought it was every bit as good as Daft Punk in 2007. When you think that half of the audience weren't even born when Leftism was released and didn’t really know who the band was, for them to be able to maintain that size of crowd for the whole set was unforgettable. Massive respect to Neil Barnes for producing such an epic performance after more than 10 years away after only having 4 tiny warm up shows to get the show ready. My last memory of Saturday was getting lost in the Afterbuner with Soma’s Dave Clark listening to Green Velvet. How good was the Afterburner on Saturday night?! We have to get it back next year. 

The rain on Sunday didn’t seem to dampen spirits at all and thankfully stopped later on. Great moment was the time when the 5000 people sitting down to watch Kevin Bridges politely got up and rushed to the front so the other 5000 people outside could get into the tent to see a really really funny set from Kevin. The ‘Glasgow to Palma Majorca flight’ story was hilarious.

So much happened on the Sunday, Japanese Popstars killed it, Zane finally made it to Rock Ness and just got stuck in with a set on the Afterburner, The Maccabees played a really cool impromptu set for Howard at his pub before they played main stage which is great and I wish more bands would do that type of thing so thanks to them for being so accommodating. Vampire Weekend were a great support act for the Strokes and they didn’t disappoint. Then The Strokes turned up in our tiny back stage area looking every bit the headliners they are and they just got right into the swing of it. Very cool guys, they were really up for it and I think that showed with a really great performance. Word back from their camp is that they loved it and Nick told me on Monday morning they’d love to come back. All that was left was the fireworks and Dave Clarke tearing the roof off the Sunday Best Arena.

So massive thank you to the bands, DJs, all the people who worked on the show and our sponsors. A huge thanks to Sub Club, Soma, Da Bank, Dewaele, Howard, ‘Hermanos Cubanos’, Clash, Annie, Zane and everyone at Radio 1 but an even bigger thank you to all of you who came and made it the best RockNess ever!!

Jim King