Well, loyal Bristol Beats Club listeners should by now already know the drill but, seeing as we don’t actually have any, let’s lay down some ground rules…
The Bristol Beats Club are unlike almost all other music journalists. In fact, we bring a whole new meaning to the word ‘journalist’.
Because, despite the fact we did spend a considerable amount of time frequenting Lollapalooza’s press toilets –
VIP mate, plumbed in! –
We more often than not eschew such press based privileges to report on what you, a fun-loving member of the general public – can expect from a festival such as Lollapalooza Berlin.
Yep, we involuntarily consume swathes of alcohol and put our health at risk, despite now being clearly far too old to do so, just so you get the hard and hazy facts.
And not simply a list of songs played by each band, or the official Lollapalooza Berlin press release rehashed with a few more superlatives thrown in.
The idea is that you then get to decide whether or not the festival’s worth the 100 euros+ asking price.
And the airfare, in fact, if you’re travelling from the UK.
Or whether or not you’re better off frequenting another music festival elsewhere on the continent.
We should point out before we begin that the Bristol Beats Club aims neither to offend nor entertain anyone and, as Daim let slip in an outtake from the very first Bristol Beats Club podcast, all the way back in 2013:
We’re not in the business of the factual representations of things.
So sit back and enjoy our candid, offensive and potentially unfactual review of Lollapalooza Berlin. We’ll see you on the other side…
However you choose to arrive to Lollapalooza Berlin, you should try to avoid arriving hungover following two German Wings flights that were both delayed by over an hour each.
Because we can assure you it does not make queuing for the festival in the baking heat any less daunting.
That’s right. Lollapalooza is a now a relatively commercial festival, and the Berlin arm isn’t any different.
And whilst this does have its upsides –
Like the fact you get a hell of a lineup for a very reasonable price –
It does mean that it’s somewhat oversubscribed.
We did have to queue for quite some time to get in.
I clocked it at around 45 minutes, which by British standards is pretty acceptable.
But by German standards is probably punishable under criminal law.
So needless to say, by the time we actually made it in, we were parched.
But at least this time we were prepared!
You’re talking about the cashless system here.
I am indeed. Just like at Best Kept Secret festival, Lollapalooza Berlin is entirely cashless.
Yep, in an effort to keep bar and food queues down, the Lollapalooza payment mechanism is all electronic.
You simply top up a chip in your wristband at designated top up points –
And then use your band to pay for things like superman.
It’s an efficient system. And, being the old and haggered festival vets that we are, we even went out of our ways to beat queues entirely by topping up our wristbands via the festival app, which meant as soon as we got in, it was to the bar!
But, of course, our pre-credited wristbands failed us on first usage.
Which meant that, like a 15 year old kid who’s been caught smuggling beer from his father’s fridge, two grown men had their beers snathced out of their hands by angry German bartenders who told us we didn’t have enough money to pay for them.
Which is why we advise, if you do go to Lollapalooza, topping up your wristband not via the app, but at the designated top up points located within the festival.
And for God’s sake make sure your band is activated on the way in.
Two queues, some language barriers and a couple of long-overdue pints later and we’d started to get into the Lolla music.
And US based up and comers Joywave played a blinder. If you’ve not heard of them check them out. The band were arguably the act of the festival.
Yeah, either them or Everything Everything I reckon, who, incidentally were on straight after.
And I must say Chris was practising a strange phenomenon by this point. He’d been to the bar but, instead of ordering another beer, he’d come back with water. I questioned him on his decision.
“When you indulge in spacer drinks… you end up feeling less like a prune”
Spacer drinks, it turns out, are water rounds between beers. Sound in theory –
But in practise it was gonna bankrupt us. Bottled water was 3 euros a pop and, as far as we found out, free drinking water simply isn’t available at Lollapalooza Berlin.
And pints were 5.50 a go. They did come down to 4.50 a go if you handed your glass back in along with a token the barstaff gave out… but it was a practise the Bristol Beats Club were struggling to get the hang of.
“Chris, I’ve amassed 16 tokens”
So what were we gonna do? What would you do? You’ve got limited funds but need virtually unlimited beer. And that was when we spotted our saviour.
Yep, because wandering round by this point were lots of German’s who could speak lots of German, and that meant they had inside knowledge…
Many – in fact most – of the local Lollapaloozites were wandering round with cartons of something or other – orange juice, milk, apple juice – it couldn’t be a coincidence.
And it fell to two underage drinkers to confirm our suspicions.
“Why is it everybody has these cartons at Lollapalooza?”
“Because we can bring alcohol in.”
So you can take booze in… as long as it’s in a cardboard carton.
Almost immediately after finding out, it was off to the closest supermarket.
Where we picked up a bottle of vodka for 5 euros – less than the price of a Bristol beats Club festival pint – along with our cranberry juice mixers and a rather strange looking German sausage as a snack.
Which neither of us could bring ourselves to take a single bite from.
“Daim, there is literally no way in hell I’m gonna eat those sausages.”
“Why the fuck did we buy them, then?”
Plied with cheap booze and cranberry juice, it was off to FFS, then Digitalism, then CHVRCHES over on the alternative stage.
And I must say, the alternative stage was somewhat neglected.
That’s right, yeah. You’ve got main stage 1, main stage 2, the alternative stage and Perry’s stage here. And the onus certainly isn’t on the alternative stage.
It doesn’t even have screens up. Which would be fine, if the festival was undersubscribed.
But as we said it’s rather commercial.
Which meant it was packed to the rafters. Our vision was heavily impaired.
And we largely chose to engage in a political debate for the entirity of Chvrhes set. The vodka had gone to our heads. As we found out when we took a break between sets and Daim started running around in his best German accent asking every man, woman and child.
“[Daim speaks German, asking strangers to nosh Chris off]”
Now Beats Clubbers, we like the Libertines more than anyone.
They truly are one of our favourite bands.
And were one of the reasons we went along to Lollapalooza in the first place.
But we’re sad to report, their set was a little disappointing.
They pulled out of two gigs prior to their appearance at Lollapalooza.
Which meant it was a miracle they showed up.
And went some way to explaining the fact that they couldn’t quite keep in time, had to cut songs of and restart them, and seemed a little unable to recall their own lyrics at points.
We were left to indulge in a few more beers before calling it a night. But not before a quick snack we to sober us up.
“These sausages are alright”
You’d be amazed at what the German people have for breakfast. Eating in Berlin was the one time we were actually regretting the fact we’d neglected to bring along a mountain of breakfast biscuits.
“This German breakfast is composed of sausages, eggs, cheese, honey and jam. Plus, it’s difficult to see where the oranges fit in.”
But one we’d eaten, it was back over to the festival.
Coasts were first on the bill.
I was personally unamused at the frontman’s insistence on acting out each lyric he could – for example pointing to his feet during the lyric ‘souls of your feet’.
However, as I am a massive bender, I really enjoyed it. And I’ve never been more annoyed that it is in fact Chris who wrote this review.
The Sunday was a little more patchy on the musical side of things, which left lots of time to indulge in some of the festival’s miscellaneous highlights.
You know what we mean here. They’re the added extras. The above and beyonds.
And to be honest, Lollapalooza did really quite well.
It was surprising, considering its commercialism, wasn’t it?
Yeah they had something for kids called Kidzapalooza, something fashion-y bit called Fashionpalooza nice little foodie bit and a fun-fair simply called ‘funfair’.
Not very inventive with the names really, were they?
Nor were they with the games in the funfair!
Haha, yes, every single game was the same thing. Chuck a ball in a hole in eight different variations.
Whilst we’re hoping it was some kind of hilarious irony, deep down we’re pretty sure it was face value.
But it was good fun nonetheless! Accompanied by facepainting, acrobatic performances, theatrical stunts and a hell of a lot of photobooths.
So long as you were willing to spend your entire time a t the festival queuing.
It’s true, there were queues for almost everything, but the toilets suffered the most.
Yes, Beats Clubbers, we’re sad to report that Lollapalooza had major toilet issues on Day 1, which meant that there were lots of people either pissing right there on the floor.
For the Bristol Beats Club, though, it meant the one time we exercised our access all areas to pop to the loo without queuing. But we can assure you, it was necessary.
“You can’t run when you need a piss that badly… you#ve just gotta… kinda… shuffle.”
To be fair to the festival organisers, they’d shipped in a load more portaloos for day 2, so can be forgiven their temporary mishap.
But what really is unforgivable was how close together they’d plonked the stages.
That’s right, yeah. It wasn’t a major issue on the Saturday because few bands overlapped. But at times on the Sunday it was chaos.
As we found out after we’d finished checking out Lollapalooza’s miscellanous delights. We wandered over to Clean Bandit’s set, lured in by some pretty impressive covers the guys were laying on.
But when we got there, we couldn’t really tell what the fuck was going on. The stages clearly overlapped.
The acoustics were all over the place. it was impossible to enjoy Clean Bandit’s set because it was completely intertwined with brand new’s who were playing simultaneously less than 100 feet away.
“The acoustics are seriously failing this place.”
Nevertheless, we made the most of it, and caught some wicked sets from Stereophonics and Belle & Sebastian before heading over to the show’s closer, Muse.
Matt Bellamy and co put on a hell of a performance, pulling out all the stops to get the crowd going. We’re talking balloons, streamers a light show John Lewis’d be proud of, the lot.
And that more or less brought a close to Lollapalooza Berlin 2015. A few Scots we bumped into attempted persuading us to join them in a Berlin super club but we’d had enough.
It’d been another long summer and we’d done our bit. But our old, tired bodies couldn’t take it anymore. And as we took a seat to rest our tired legs before the inevitably rawberry trip back first to the hostel and then to the UK, Daim summed things up nicely in one simple sentence.
“Chris, next summer, we’re going to Centre Parcs.”
Well, Beats Clubbers, that just about concludes not only our Lollapalooza Berlin review, but also our run of festival reviews. Thanks for staying with us to the very end. And hey, if you liked it, why not subscribe to the show on iTunes
We’re just about ready to make a fresh batch of six new podcast featuring twelve up and coming indietronica artists that will shape the festivals of years to come. If you wanna hear it all first, you know what to do.
I’ve been Chris Bilko.
And I am a massive bender.
We love you all very, very, very, very much….
Bristol Beats Xx