Festival review: Beach Break Live 2011
23rd June 2011
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And as the rain soon drenches some 20,000 UK students you could hardly call this small music festival on the beaches of South Wales ‘Benicassim’. Not that a bit of blustering wind and showers will stop this bunch of punters though. With such boisterous energy and enthusiasm you’d forget you were in such a lucid and remote part of the Welsh countryside, although the silence from the no-show Gabriella Aplin might say otherwise.
So, queue Yasmin whose upbeat and heartfelt soul brings a touch of classy funk to Wales. Then there’s Ed Sheeran, a firey headed acoustic maestro who knows how to get the crowd going. The Sheeran-ator we might as well call him as his half human acoustic ability and half electronic looping creates the illusion that there’s more than one Ed on stage. Ed number one – check. Ed number two – check. Ed number three – check…and so on. The rendition of Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’ finally brings things to a minimum showing that one Ed is just as good as several at once. Finally, Tinie Tempah closes the first night wowing the crowd with a charismatic and confident attitude. Note to newspaper headline seekers. Single ‘Pass Out’ does indeed cause a mass pass out like Mr Tempah were a leader of a Charles Manson-esque suicide cult.
Early the next day, Frankie and the Heartstrings carry proceedings on in flamboyant fashion. Frankie Francis is exceptionally charming whilst he prances around, hair flopping about as if he were a young David Bowie. The melodies of ‘Hunger’ build up perfectly into a perfect summer pop song whilst We Are Scientists’ ‘In Action’ kick starts a surge of excited abandon into everyone and it’s not until the energetic sways of thrashing chords in ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ that shows a crowd who are unable to keep the promise of the song title.

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