We Are Scientists

Beach Break Live

16.6.11-20.6.11

Mine and Bec's first time at Beach Break, and it was Bec's first ever festival. Hadn't really heard much about Beach break until this year, we decided to go after a good chunk of our favourite bands were announced to play it.

The festival itself is tiny compared to the others that I have been too, which turned out to work really well. The campsite and main arena had a really chilled out vibe, that is lacking at Reading festival. I think this was mostly down to the crowd all being over 18 and students.

First act we saw was Ed Sheeran on the rainy Friday. We've been fans for a while of his music, well ever since I saw him on Jools Holland. His set was great, and oddly enough his rapping worked amazing well. If you don't know Ed Sheeran is a very white, auburn haired 20 something year old. This isn't a combination made for a good rapper, but he pulled it off with credibility. The highlight had to be when he played 'The A Team', he got a good sing-a-long for that. Later on that night we saw Professor Green, who we've decided is oddly attractive, and Tinie Tempah. Both brilliant sets. Apart from the initial being crushed at the start of Tinie's set. I got my angry face on, which isn't that angry considering I was wearing a ripped Alton Towers poncho, and pushed us back a bit.

The next day was the day we were both looking forward to the most. Three of our favourite bands in a row - WAS, Example and then White Lies. WAS were hilarious as usual, the crowd was a little disappointing for them, but still we loved their set. Slightly embarrassed myself at the end as Bec dared me to yell 'I LOVE YOU KEITH', having a little cider in me I accepted the dare and went on to shout at the quietest point in their set. Example was brilliant, the crowd was completely with him and he went down very well with the student audience. White Lies were headlining that night, I was interested to see how everyone reacted to their set after Example. I was pleased when everyone had loads of energy for them and their set was brilliant. We had met two nice guys earlier in the night and out of nowhere during 'E.S.T' they lifted me and Bec onto their shoulders. This was amazing, we could see across the entire crowd and Harry looked straight at us. It was really fun and an oddly intense experience being above the crowd, you can never get an idea how big the crowd is when you're on the floor level with everyone else.

Finally the weather was beautiful on the last day. We spent most of the day sunbathing and listening to some really great bands on the mainstage. Later on we watched Katy B who we both enjoyed and afterwards Magnetic Man were playing. Their set was awesome, again I got lifted up onto a nice mans shoulders and the crowd lost their shit during 'I Need Air'.

For such a small festival Beach Break was brilliant, I prefer it to Reading as it has a much nicer and chilled out vibe. I would love to go again if it has a decent line-up.

We Are Scientists - Nottingham

27.11.2010

Went with Bec and Emily to Rock City. Got a good spot at the front, the the support band were already on. They reminded me a lot of The XX, so quite good but a bit dull for support. The next band 'Goldheart Assembly' were a lot more like WAS so we really enjoyed their set.

WAS were great as usual, we got shoved forward during, I think, 'Nobody move nobody get hurt' and ended up on the barrier. Textbook came on and Keith jumped down to the crowd and came right to us. Even better he looked at me, nodded, then put the mic to my face and I sang! Amazing. I was holding his head as I sang which was insane. After I think I smiled for about 5 hours.

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Glastonbury

23rd-28th June 2010

Me and Emily went to work this years Glasto with 'Specialized Security'. Basically they're the people who secure all the main areas like the Pyramid stage and so on. When we got there we waited outside the main gate to get let in for a while. Finally someone from the security came and got us and took us into their compound. We were pretty nervous when we first stepped in as me and Emily stood out like sore thumbs! Put it this way everyone else there either had no teeth or were huge burly blokes. Once we got our rooms we settled down and got woken up at 6.30am the next day. This was a horrific start for me as 12pm is a poor lay-in for me. We tramped to the catering tent and met some surprisingly nice people. All the girls got bunched together as there were so few of us. Then we were given our positions for the weekend. Me and Emily got put in the 'Orange Tent', a place for people to charge their phones. This concept was lost on me as I assumed a festival was about seeing some bands not ringing your mate Dave at home?! Anyway we were given some truly delightful orange polo shirts to wear, just in case we couldn't quite be marked out as security they gave us some lovely baseball hats too.

Our jobs were extremely dull as it mostly involved standing at a gate alone checking peoples bands in the sun. It was all made worth it though as we got to see some amazing bands and luckily worked with a bunch of really cool people who were lovely to us. One of the best parts of our tent was that it had a mini pyramid stage which hosted some surprise bands.

Friday -

Ellie Goulding - She was the first person we had heard of that played in our tent. She was amazing and it was great as I just hid at the back and watched her set.

Newton Fawlkner - He was really good, he's also a very nice man in person. I chatted to him for a while after his set. The crowd, small as they were, didn't let him go for ages as he was so good. My favourite part was his cover of Blacksteet's 'No Diggity'. It just goes to show a white man with ginger dreads can have soul!

Lissie- Never heard of them before but really enjoyed their set. The crowd wouldn't let them go either.

Gorillaz- We just caught the start of their set. They were pretty good, some of their set was a bit random and the crowd didn't really know some of the songs. When they got to their main songs it was great, especially when Snoop Dogg came out!

Saturday-

Tine Tempah- Me and Emily were excited to see him as his songs are pretty much our uni anthems. When he came on we stood at the front and danced, as casually as we could. He was great and I smiled at him as he swanned off into the VIP area.

Muse- They were stupidly good. Too good. Well not too good just immense. Saw all of their set and it was flawless. When the Edge came out to play 'Where the streets have no name' it was insane. I was super happy when they played 'Map of the Problematique' which is my favourite Muse song. Matt Bellamy is beautiful.

Sunday -

We Are Scientists- Our supervisor was amazing and let us run off and watch them play. They were as good as they were the last time I saw them, if not better. I was pleased Emily enjoyed them too as I bang on about them so much! We managed to get ourselves on camera a few times too.

Glastonbury was beautiful, if not hard work but it was worth it.

We Are Scientists

23/04/08

I was desperate to go see this band, but the carling show had sold out and by complete random chance i entered a competition on NME.com and won 3 tickets to the show i wanted to go to! So i was super excited to go. I went with pete and jess to the gig, we went and stood up on the balcony and had a really good view of the stage.

The support band 'Oxford Collapse' sucked, big time. The best part was when Keith came on stage a played the tambourine!

WAS were super good and played pretty much all my favourite songs, including Cash Cow which is my all time favourute song EVER!

Video: which has terrible sound.

Cash Cow