Organisers promised it would be the ‘Year of the Ness’, and after winning Line Up Of The Year at the UK Festival Awards and Best Small Festival at the NME Awards, they had a lot to live up to.
Comments on the festival forum pre-event mused that this year’s headliners had blown the budget with the rest of the line up made up of fillers but anyone who attended the three-day event would argue otherwise after such a spectacular weekend of dance, rock and picturesque scenery.
Friday started with the site surprisingly quiet with most people making the most of their cargo of booze in the campsite. One of the first acts to open the weekend was Losers, with their exciting eclectic mix of hard rock and dance and with their album Acrobatica out at the end of this year they could be set to play higher up a festival bill next year.
Brother were one of the bands to suffer from the dance-weighted lineup earlier in the day, with the majority of revelers packing areas such as the Bacardi Get Together and Golden Voice stage while they were on the main stage. Despite arriving with plenty of attitude, the band seemed disappointed with the small crowd who stood in the pouring rain to watch them. Meanwhile Mark Ronson went back to his DJing roots for a set on the Golden Voice stage, dropping in hit after hit to the delight of the packed tent.
Northern Irish electro-rockers Two Door Cinema Club seemed genuinely overwhelmed by the response from the crowd during a set showcasing debut album Tourist History, peppered with a couple of new tracks where a Celtic influence were evident. The band’s first appearance at the festival was high velocity and left the crowd wanting more, especially an excitable female fan who gave the band their first ever flash at a gig. Not quite the mountains they were expecting to see on their trip up north.
Next up on the main stage, there can only be one word to describe the astonishing Oz DJ Zane Lowe – outstanding. Three decks, mixing, scratching and a crowd going absolutely mental. A surprise hit for many in the crowd, he well and truly warmed up the audience to melting proportions for headliners Kasabian with the hill overflowing with drunken bodies clamouring to get a decent vantage point.
The opening day’s buzz was all about Kasabian and they did not disappoint. With mist rolling up the valley through the green forest on either side and swirling through the hills, it was part fairytale setting and part mad max chaos as the crowd erupted to greet them, encapsulating the Rockness ethos perfectly – a mash of dance beats and rock.
Looking up the hill, grass now barely visible under the massive crowd, an overwhelmed Tom Meighan shouted, “Rockness, you look beautiful from here!”. Opening with a pounding ‘Club Foot’, a sea of bodies was soon frenetically bouncing up and down in waves. A hit-laden set was punctuated with our first tasters of new material with tracks such as ‘Velociraptor’ and ‘Switchblade Smile’ filled with dirty dance beats. The rapturous crowd were given an encore cover of Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ and the frantic beefy beats of new song ‘Stuntman’, before finale track ‘Fire’ exploded the glen into a rapture of pogoing bodies in an awesome sight with a rumble which would surely wake the sleeping monster in the waters beyond. Those with energy still to burn tore it up at the other-worldly Arcadia Afterburner long into the night.
Saturday
Those nursing hangovers in their tent missed out on one of the lesser-known highlights of the weekend, Strawberry Ocean Sea on the Rock and Roll Circus. Championed by Glasvegas , this Glasgow band have been tipped for success by those in the know in the Scottish music scene. Sweeping anthemic walls of sound that Arcade Fire would be proud of meets Bruce Springsteen sounding vocals, with ‘Down By The River’ a live stand out track.
Saturday brought some garage, dubstep and drum and bass to the usually rock/techno-orientated main stage. Returning the spotlight after a near-fatal car crash a few years ago, Ms Dynamite exploded onto the stage in one of the most energetic performances of the weekend. The singer, (bravely for a festival) clad head to toe in white, mixed her own stuff with some covers and aired her new single ‘Never Soft’ which is due out the end of July. Like a Duracell bunny on speed, she bounded around MC-ing and singing to the small crowd who had turned out early to see her performance. With a Scottish mum, the small singer appeared to be lapping up the homecoming and came back out post performance to get a pic of the crowd for her twitter page.
Attention–grabbing announcement to “sound the alarm across the last days… the last generation and the last time…” brought Liverpool band Sound of Guns took to the Golden Voice stage. A wall of stomping bass and guitars fired up for ‘Elementary Youth’, followed by ‘Sometimes’ – from their second not-yet-released second album. Following the success of last year’s debut ‘What Came From Fire’, the set sooked in the crowd with anthemic tunes and enthusiastic frontman Andy Metcalfe jumped into the crowd halfway through to the adoration of the front row who clamoured to touch him. “I’m still waiting for the big monster to come out of the loch and get involved… we saw a monster coming out of Brother’s tent this morning” jibed the singer. After a storming set, last song ‘Alcatraz’, saw the crowd surge forward and a couple of them manage to get onto the stage, grabbing the lads from the band. Andy, still singing, climbed the stage rigging, much to the dismay of the stewards and the delight of the crowd. Boss.
Meanwhile on the main stage, the sun had eventually decided to make an appearance and Barry Peters, a local hospital radio DJ (more familiar to veteran Rockness festival-goers as one part of the all-singing/dancing/comedy act that is The Cuban Brothers) took to the stage. This show had the crowd in hysterics, getting everyone to do the Gay Gordons before jumping into the crowd to join in and ending up with a double Dutch jump rope competition in front of the main stage.
Saturday saw most of the guitar bands placed on the Golden Voice stage and the dance/dub step and garage acts on the main stage. The Chapel Club and Broken Records still pulled the crowds but the majority of people flocked to the main stage despite the heavy rain for Annie Mac.
Sons and Daughters and Frightened Rabbit flew the flag for Scotland at Golden Voice, but it was the latter band who manage to cram the tent to capacity. Was it the local connection or the pouring rain? Who cares – they rocked the tent to its foundations with a phenomenal performance. Elsewhere on site, having eventually found the tent where they were meant to perform (no one on site seemed to know where The Rockness Sound City stage was, not even the band). The Draymin had the place jumping and at the end told everyone to join them back up in the campsite after for a party. After announcing their split a couple of years ago, the Fife band returned for their second time at Rockness bigger and better, and set to take Scotland by storm.
Back on the main stage, Example had the festival in the palm of his hand with the crowd dancing as far as the eye could see, especially when he dropped in ‘Changed The Way You Kissed Me’. However, without a doubt the biggest draw of the weekend was the Saturday headliner Chemical Brothers who stole the show with the predominantly rave-orientated crowd dancing hypnotically to a mash up of their own material combined with stunning visuals. The bass rattled up the hill shaking the glen to its core and the drizzle which failed to ease up during the day eventually ceased during the spectacular set.
Up the hill at the Golden Voice stage, secondary headliners The Cribs played to a quarter full tent, but those who chose the rockers over the main stage were rewarded with a magical set and frontman Ryan Jarman made a dig at the dance acts of the weekend by musing “If you are wondering where our laptops are – we don’t have any.”
Sunday
Rockness Sunday began with a rolling mist and then having to crack open the sun cream (honestly!) as the blistering sun turned hungover faces and shoulders pink, but the poncho was forever close to hand as the schizophrenic weather failed to make up its mind throughout the day. Opening day three of a festival is always a bit of a tough gig, as it takes even the most hardly of festival going revelers a while to fire up after two solid days of debauchery. A few hardly souls lay in the glorious sunshine watching Vintage Trouble‘s upbeat soul and R&B set preparing themselves for the final day of festivities.
Next up on the main stage were The Twilight Sad, a band whose epic sound was built for the scenic landscape rolling out behind the main stage, but not perhaps an obvious choice for a mainly dance-orientated festival. Despite battling against sound problems which had plagued the main stage the whole weekend, echoing guitars and thundering drums made their cinematic wall of sound roll up the hill and disperse into the dance beats of the tents beyond with the band playing tracks from Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters and their latest album Forget The Night Ahead. Lead singer James Graham, who puts in an emotive performance, apologised for fucking up a song and suggests jokingly that the audience head off afterwards and “take a couple of eccies”. The band were perfect Sunday morning hangover material.
One-man beat box machine Beardyman pulled a massive crowd mid afternoon, and a quick walk round the site looked like almost everyone who had now emerged from the campsite was there to see his awesome talent. The bearded-wonder explained at the beginning of his set that he creates every sound you are about to hear, with sounds recorded and put through a sampler – beats, raps, singing, instruments – he does it all and with only his voice. It is astonishing to witness and completely justifies the large audience he has drawn.
Back on the main stage, US singer Lissie, dressed in checked shirt and free Lucozade sunnies she got while on a wander round the site, charmed the crowd with her debut Americana album ‘Catching A Tiger’. The newcomer’s sound went down well as the crowd basked in the afternoon sunshine.
Elsewhere on site the Sub Club and pyrotechnic Afterburner stage was bouncing with ravers and Andy Weatherall built up a pumping set with weary dancers recharged to take on the rest of the evening. Simian Mobile Disco soon had the Golden Voice tent rammed to capacity and back at the Sub Club, or ‘Subby’ as it was affectionately known for the weekend, Jamie Ford was ripping it up in top form.
The closing evening of Rockness was rich in Scottish talent with Glasvegas warming up for headliner Paulo Nutini. The four piece from the East End of Glasgow are fresh from releasing their second album Euphoric//Heartbreak, but it was the anthemic tracks from their first album that had the crowd singing along, in particular Go Square Go and Geraldine. Perhaps the morose nature of some of the tracks was too much for a Rockness crowd facing a three-day Monday hangover. James Allan, clad head to toe in white, a contrast to the black, black and more black look of the band previously, joked with the crowd when a bottle of poppers was launched onto the stage “If you are going to throw drugs at least make sure there is some left… on second thoughts no – my mum’s here.” After lying spread out on the stage having a chatter to the crowd and telling us he “cannae believe he is being paid for this”, the singer then left the crowd with a poignant moment at the end of ‘Daddy’s Gone’. As the crowd sang the chorus back to him he looked up, overwhelmed by the occasion, and with a smile he said “Mum, we’ve made it”.
It is easy to forget Paolo Nutini is a sprightly 24, as he seems to have been around forever (in a good way) and is part of Scotland’s music furniture. The crowd at the main stage swelled massively for the singer who is now classified along with tartan and shortbread as a national export. Opening with ‘Jenny Don’t Be Hasty’, the Paisley singer sang a succession of hits including ‘Candy’ and turned the joint into a massive speak easy with tracks from second album Sunny Side Up. His chat between songs was lost on some non-Scottish festival goers who struggled with his thick Paisley brogue but Nutini’s set was a perfect climax to the weekend and the finale which included a cover of MGMT’s ‘Time To Pretend’, left everyone wishing they could Rewind to start the Year Of The Ness weekend all over again.
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