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.