Best Kept Secret Festival Review – 2015

Bristol Beats Club Comedy Podcasts

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It’s our Best Kept Secret Festival 2015 review. Listen now (or download from iTunes/Stitcher).

https://www.bristolbeatsclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/best-kept-secret-festival-review.mp3

And for those of you that insist on reading…

The Bristol Beats Club make podcasts. It’s what we do. But we know some of you prefer the written word.

If you’re one of those people, you’ll find the transcript of the above podcast below… so fill your boots. But be warned!

As the review was only ever meant to be consumed in podcast format, if read, it won’t always make sense. And, if you do go ahead and read it, we’ll think less of you. You’re better than that.

So the choice is yours. But listen. Don’t read. Ta.

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Intro: Some Explanatory notes

Greetings, Beats Clubber, and thanks very much for downloading this one off, very special Bristol Beats Club podcast; a Best Kept Secret Festival 2015 review. Before we get stuck in it’s worth one or two explanatory notes –

The Bristol Beats Club are unlike most other music journalists. Indeed, we visited the Best Kept Secret press area just once in our entire time at the festival. And, whilst other journalists were busily typing away on their mac-book pros, desperately attempting to be the first of the pack to reveal the latest Circa Waves set list, we were merely looking to get a couple of pints in without queuing at the bar.

Yep, it’s true. And what we present to you in this podcast is not necessarily another unopinionated and impartial account of what happened at Best Kept Secret in 2015. Instead, it’s an honest account of what you, a standard member of the intoxicated, music and fun-loving general public, can really expect from Best Kept Secret. Most importantly, it reveals whether or not a ticket is worth the £125 asking price.

As always, the Bristol Beats Club aims neither to offend nor entertain anyone and, as Daim very cleverly mentioned back in the first ever Bristol Beats Club podcast, we’re not in the business of the factual representation on things.

So enjoy the podcast and, if you like, subscribe to the show on iTunes. And on that note…

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Best Kept Secret Festival Day 0: Getting to the Festival from the UK

When Daim neglected to take his tent with him to 2000Trees festival last year, he described it as ‘the worst possible start to a festival I’d ever experienced’. Clearly, he’d never made the pilgrimage to Best Kept Secret.

You see, as you likely already know, Best Kept Secret takes place just outside of Tilburg, over in the Netherlands. What you’re much less likely to know is that the Bristol Beats Club are based over in Bristol in the South West of England.

And that meant that, when we received our press accreditation five days before the festival began, we had a burning desire to attend, shoestring funds and some 400 miles to cover before soaking in the likes of alt-j, the Libertines and the enthusiastic attitude of laid back and liberal Dutch party-goers.

Last minute flights were deemed too pricey. Swimming, on the other hand, seemed too dangerous. Amazingly, a ferry crossing wasn’t even considered. Because there was a fourth, rather intriguing offering.

You see, the clever people at Best Kept Secret clearly know their audience. And they clearly know that some poor souls from the UK need a convenient way of getting over to an unknown location in the Netherlands with absolute minimum outlay.

So they’ve teamed up with Planet Festival to arrange a door to door(ish) coach journey, from either London, Bristol or Manchester all the way to the festival – return – for the bargain price of 99 quid.

And, perceiving this fourth potential mode of transportation as a very clear ‘party bus’, that was exactly what the Bristol Beats Club opted for. Needless to say, the decision proved costly.

We left Bristol at 10pm on the Thursday. One coach trip became two, two trips became three coaches trips and a ferry, three coaches trips and a ferry became three coach trips, a ferry, a short walk and some serious sleep deprivation, and, eventually, at 3pm on the Friday – 17 hours after our pilgrimage had begun – we arrived at the Festival gates, feeling as if we’d already put our bodies through three days of carnage before our festival had even begun.

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Best Kept Secret Festival Day 1: Straight Rum & No Food All Day Long

But, nonetheless, we had arrived. And it didn’t take us long to forget about our travel woes as the prospect of seeing Circa Waves was looming large on the horizon. And what what one item could improve an experience like seeing Circa Waves? That’s right, a cold beer. So it was time to take our bank cards and top up our wristbands (that’s right all your money is stored on a chip on your wristband at Best Kept Secret) and savour that most beautiful of tastes: the first festival beer.

“I’m sorry we don’t accept visas” – would an example the last thing on earth you would want a person who is your one remaining barrier to a post-17 hour bus journey beer to say as you hand them your Visa. Predictably, though, this was the scenario the Bristol Beats Club faced – along with two equally distraught Scottish gentlemen. And, after we all attempted a desperate gallop across a field to catch a shuttle bus that was our only hope of reaching a cash point before the next morning, we conceded defeat.

So we were left with the harrowing prospect of the rest of the day with nothing entering our bellies besides a soft drink bottle filled to brim with straight rum.

But we did have breakfast biscuits and wasabi peanuts!

This potentially concerning outcome was shared by Mark and Gary, our new Scottish counterparts.

And, as luck would have it, we also shared a keen interest in Circa Waves and the Libertines, the Friday’s stand-out artists.

Needless to say, by the time Libertines’ characteristically chaotic set got underway we had long forgotten that the only solids to have passed our lips in the last 24 hours were a mountain of cereal bars. And, by the time the euphoria of being one of the few present at Best Kept Secret to hear the brand new Libertines’ song “Gunga Din” had set in, we couldn’t care less about the straight rum tumbling around our empty bellies that was inevitably going to lead to a serious hangover in just a few hours time.

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Best Kept Secret Day 2: Showering, Shuttling & S(h)ucking Off

The fact that we failed to wake until midday the next day – at a happening music festival, whilst sheltered solely by (separate) sweltering canvas houses – was testament to four things.

The first, that, thanks to a post-17 hour bus journey two days ago, we’d completely skipped an entire night’s sleep. The second, that we’d eaten nothing but peanuts for a good 30 hours and our bodies had probably slipped into a mild form of coma. The third, that we were actually at a much more chilled out festival than the kind you’d typically find in UK. And the fourth, that we’d stayed up late last night, looking deep into each others eyes whilst singing Eric Clapton at the top of our lungs.

Neither of our two tents was trampled, vandalised or urinated on at any point during that first evening. In fact, they remained in tip-top condition, and entirely theft free, for the whole weekend. We rose from our tents and took stock of the situation.

We were hungry, that much was clear. And we needed a shower. (Yes, the Bristol Beats Club shower at festivals. You should try it. It does wonders for the hangovers.) And, on listening back to this recording from the evening before,

[An angry German woman shouting]

we probably needed to apologise for something. But which was the priority?

Well, despite being pretty sure an apology was necessary,

[There’s a prosecution on the horizon]

we had no idea who we had to apologise to. So that – shamefully – was pushed to the bottom of the to-do list.

Food was truly important. But it was so much more difficult to obtain than a shower. Which meant the matter was settled – off to the showers it was.

UK festival goers might find this surprising, but the showers at Best Kept Secret were truly sensational. It seems the organisers, instead of booking a field on a farm in the middle of nowhere, have set their campers up in an actual, fit for purpose, campsite. And that meant showers that were better (and, in some instances even cleaner) than our showers at home.

Which meant I lingered a little, giving Damian time for some important self reflection.

[Sitting in a field, drinking alone, nursing a Libertines hangover from the evening before.]

And as for the toilets? Plumbed in. Plumbed in friggin toilets. No scrabbling around to find a portaloo that isn’t overflowing with human droppings, no running from the smelly waste disposal truck that’s such a staple of UK festivals; just a standard, normal toileting experience, both inside and outside of the festival arena. Despite the events of the evening before, once we were showered and dressed, things were looking up. Then they weren’t.

Because – somewhat oxymoronically – we needed to get some cash for the so-say ‘cashless’ festival. And the ATM was a long way away. Best Kept Secret – who as we know by now have thought of everything – put on a free, luxurious, air-conditioned shuttle bus to the cash-hole. The Bristol Beats Club, who often think of very little, decided to walk.

45 minutes in total. From the campsite, or from the festival arena (which, incidentally, are about 30 minutes away from each other). But, 45 minutes and a short shuttle bus return later, we were back at the festival, munching down some delicious Mexican food, watching Fickle Friends play a blinder of a set to a decent sized audience in what was a festival highlight for at least one of the two of us.

And in fact, the music was simply superb for the majority of the Saturday. Because, again, of the festival organisers – and we don’t just mean the bands they’ve booked.

You see, one of the cool things about Best Kept Secret is the fact that, on all but one of the five stages, the sound techs always have at least an hour in between bands to make sure things are just right. The result is a sound that’s once again superior to other festivals – regardless of who’s playing.

So we were treated to some belters from Temples. Then, Of Monsters and Men. Who were followed immediately by Death Cab for Cutie.

And there was no compromising on bands here, either. Acts booked on either stage 1 or 2 never clash – which means you’ll always get to see all of the big names… if, of course, you’re that way inclined.

The evening was continued with the Vaccines, and, because the cashless system means it almost never takes more than three minutes to get served, were really quite drunk by this point. Needless to say, by the time Noel Gallagher headlined with a set which included both Champagne Supernova and Don’t Look Back in Anger – no-one likes your new stuff Noel! – the evening had descended into chaos, a problem compounded by the fact that Damian was simply wandering around, asking every man, woman and child to

[nosh him off!]

Which, in fairness, probably explains what the German girl was so angry about.

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Best Kept Secret Festival Day 3: Sunshine, Skinny Dipping & the Summer Solstice

The Sunday is often the toughest day of a music festival. After two (or perhaps even more) days on the booze, you’ve not only got a compounded hangover to contend with, but the prospect of drinking (/drugging) further whilst dealing with said compounded hangover. And as I awoke, once again at midday, at Best kept Secret Festival, the by now familiar feelings of shame and anguish came rushing back to me.

[Chez… Chez… turn the device off Chez]

Have you ever woken up and realised you were a bit trigger happy with your credit card the evening before? Well, waking up at Best Kept Secret is a little like that… only if you had a credit card attached to your wrist and used it to pay for things like Superman.

We’d loaded all of our cash onto our wristbands the day before – and quickly realised that the only way to check our remaining balance was to buy more things.

You can only imagine our disappointment when a cashless machine revealed to us – almost mockingly, as we bought our first pint of the day – that we’d spent more or less all of our money the evening before. Which is even more frustrating when you consider the pints, at €4.20 a go, are very much reasonably priced.

Alas, there was just time for a quick jaunt at Wolf Alice before heading back to the cashpoint.

And who should we bump into along the way other than Gary and Mark, plus a few extra friends. And, after apologising for Daim’s ‘nosh me off’ escapades, we were back to it.

It’s worth noting that at some point on the Sunday – it had been warm and sunny up until this point – the heavens opened. But the fact that the festival is for the most part on grassy sand made the rain a more or less non-event. It rained for five minutes, the sand absorbed it. No wellies necessary, no Glastonbury-esque quagmire. The progressive festival had scored another point.

Especially as the ten minutes of rain had cleared the sky, and we now found ourselves back at the main stage, raving away in the sunshine to Future Islands, surprisingly close to the front.

And that was with no pushing, squeezing, or trampling, either. In fact, we could roam more or less as we pleased for almost all sets we witnessed, including even that most raucous of acts, The Libertines.

It’s true, we were up at the front, looking all old and out of place, for pretty much every set, without fear of heart attack. What the guys at Best Kept Secret appear to have done really well is either limit capacity or sort out their crowd management. Because there was everything going on – moshing, circle-pits, the lot – and yet we were at no point relegated to watching a set through the big screen.

So post Future Islands, after meeting even more friends, it was the turn of Royal Blood to get our hearts pumping.

But not before a few choice drunk festivalees decided to take a dip in the nearby lake.

That’s right, yes, Best Kept Secret borders the frankly beautiful Victorimeer lake – and the laid back liberal Dutch organisers give punters the respect of not fencing it off.

And, for the most part, their respect is returned.

But of course, the most debaucherous of festival goers simply can’t resist on a Sunday eve. And, even more tragically, one of them was no less than a close friend of the Bristol Beats Club.

After drying off, Gary and our ever-expanding clan indulged in the arbitrary headbanging whilst Royal Blood graced the stage. Before, realistically, the festival’s main attraction.

The sun went down on the day of the Summer solstice whilst a handful of electronic music fans were treated to a predictably beautiful set from the hottest band in the world at the moment – alt-j.

It was a set that topped off, truly, one of the most outstanding festivals the Bristol Beats Club have ever attended in the past and, given the shrivelling of our livers and Tory societal pressures for us to stop get real jobs, perhaps will ever attend in the future.

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Outro: Some parting notes

Well, thank you very much for listening Beats Clubbers. As we said beforehand, if you liked the review subscribe to the show on iTunes, Stitcher or the podcast app of your choosing.

Although we’re not making any new podcasts just now we undoubtedly will be in the future.

And you lucky podcast subscribers will be the first to know.

Take it steady.

And get your ticket for next year.

Love you long time.

Bristol Beats Xx

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• Melanie Marsman
• Kasper Vogelzang
• Chris Stessens

• Ben Houdijk/3FM
• Tonje Thilesen
• View more photos on flickr

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