Xfm at Beach Break - Day 1
Your trusty Xfm reporters have been at the UK's only student festival... here's the full run-down of day one - Wombats, Does It Offend You and burritos!
3.45pm: Xfm arrive on site and straight away are hit by three things. One? We're are literally right by the beach which is currently enjoying one serious sun bath. Surfers..yum. Two? This is what they meant when they coined the phrase "boutique festival" - really small (you can do a festival circumference in 8 minutes and 34 seconds...we timed it) but really cute and quirky: they have mud wrestling, totem poles, hammocks, star gazing towers and hot tubs. Three? This festival is more Cornish than a pasty. Absolutely bursting with it. Every bar sells cider, pear cider, strawberry cider and more cider, then there are barn dances and the inaugural 'Cornish Cup', which consists of apple bobbing, sock wrestling, and...yes, even "pimp my human sheep" (don't ask). This is gonna be a fun one. No wonder the Dragons Den wanted to invest...
4.30pm: Time to explore the Lost Gardens area with Team Waterpolo in tow. We sit down next to some giant silk flowers, look at the view, feel like hippies and discover that in actual fact, Team Waterpolo really hate Waterpolo. Having enlightened us further and revealed that if they had to pitch to the Dragons Den they'd get them to invest in a battery powered fish tank suction cleaner (keep the day jobs boys) Team Waterpolo take to the stage. They're pretty good but the crowd is seriously sparse at the moment. Where is everyone? On the beach, soaking up the rays.
[Listen To The Interview With Team Waterpolo]
5.00pm: Just bumped into Does It Offend You Yeah? They offer Xfm a bit of their burrito. It's tempting, but instead we take them to the Barn Dance and try persuade them to get involved (and fail). We do however convince them to share their ultimate festival tips with us (don't take acid...especially not brown acid), their best blagging hints (wear a walkie talkie and walk with confidence), and their fesi essentials (sun cream, sun cream, sun cream...and definitely not acid).
[Listen To The Full Interview With Does It Offend You, Yeah?]
[Listen To Their Festival Tips]
5.25pm: Ok, note to the food vendors...calling a hog roast stall 'Eat Fat Pig' is not tempting us in. Going for the Goan Fish Curry special instead.
5.40pm: Royworld invite us into their tour bus (its called 'Ted') to give us an insight into how a band lives on the road (surrounded by beer bottles and old t-shirts by all accounts). They could well be the nicest band we've ever interviewed, and they even invite Xfm to join them on their surfing adventures the following day. Deal!
7.25pm: The Wombats arrive in the daddy of all tour buses. Seriously, its pimping, and it makes the other band's auto-tour-biles look quivering in comparison. With that in mind Xfm decide to put those Wombats in their place and challenge them to a human wheel barrowing in the Cornish games Arena. Xfm proceed to get their asses well and truly whooped by The Wombats who truly are champions of the wheelbarrowing world. They also happen to be mighty amusing and share anectdotes from their recent US stint, before revealing that Murph's written four new tunes, one of which 'How To Pack Your Bags And Laugh' they'll be playing tonight.
[Listen To The Interview With The Wombats]
8.45pm: Does It Offend You Yeah? have the crowds whipped into a cornish-shaped frenzy. The crowd are really going for it now and you can smell the beginnings of a rave in the air.
10.00pm: The Star Wars theme music begins. The crowd anticipation has mounted to a crescendo. The Wombats come onto the stage for their first ever headline festival slot. It rules. Kicking things off with 'Kill The Director' they switch between a tight delivery of crowd favourites (which the crowd seem to have memorised every word to, and they let the band know it!) and some light hearted banter (apparently they got shat on by a seagull that day...but they didn't mind because it's good luck). They dedicate their set to "all the students out there". Cue wild applause (well, it is a student festival after all)
11.10pm: The Wombats leave the stage after a triumphant set but the night is just beginning as Scratch Perverts are about to rip it up in the dance stage. This wee festival doesn't send its punters home until 5am and Xfm has got some catching up to do.