The Benicàssim International Festival has returned tonight to celebrate its 25th anniversary after two years of hiatus due to the pandemic and after having mutated into a new macro-festival with the national public as the protagonist and with two of the most successful indie-pop bands national: Lori Meyers and Izal.
An FIB that, after passing into the hands of The Music Republic in 2019, intends to gather 180,000 spectators during its four days, but on Tuesday and Wednesday – the two days in which you could camp in its facilities and traditionally days with a massive arrival of Brits attracted by the full holiday experience of music, sun and sand – left a rather poor atmosphere.
A certain absence of public that made the expected attendance figures look suspiciously. A prejudice that has been dismantled with the thousands of people who have enjoyed two of the bands that have the most acolytes on the national scene, Lori Meyers and Izal.
Those first two days with little entry into the camp meant that the British have radically cut their presence. Most of the public has been local. It was easier to listen to speak in Valencian today than in English, something never seen in the FIB.
A public that has arrived en masse in Benicàssim in their private vehicle in the early afternoon and that has collapsed all the access roads to the coastal town for more than two hours with a crowd of desperate drivers looking for a place to leave the car given the impossibility of parking in the gigantic dirt car park next to the enclosure.
Once in the venue, the British Declan McKenna has gathered all the British who have been encouraged to attend this Thursday day, always the most complicated, and that this year only had the main stage and the Beach Club, where they played DJs like Angel Pop!, Isaac Corrales, Toxicosmos or Jet Set. These last two appealing to the collective musical imagination of FIB lovers playing songs by Blur, Oasis, Red Hot Chilly Peppers, La Casa Azul, Chemical Brothers and also playing it safe with Rigoberta Bandini or the Spice Girls.
On the main stage, after McKenna, the national public has been arriving en masse with Lori Meyers, as resolute, energetic and successful as ever, although she finished her performance 12 minutes early despite the fact that Noni was encouraged to walk down the catwalk that was has installed this year on the main stage and has finally sneaked into the audience to sing with them that “all this is the people’s fault”.
After Lori Meyers, the public has left for dinner and has returned en masse to see Izal, that band that fills stadiums with armies of fans and that has announced the end of its 12 years on stage with an aura of constantly being ready to touch an ecstatic glory with the tips of the fingers.
Mikel Izal thanked the public for having come to “crowd” the first day of the festival in which, contrary to what is usual, the bands have correctly placed the stressed syllable in Benicàssim when addressing the public.
Probably the future of this new FIB has been staged by what happened in the VIP, in which while David Sánchez, co-director of The Music Republic -the promoter company of the Arenal Sound, the Festival de Les Arts or the Interstellar de Sevilla among many others-, looked with satisfaction at the good commercial performance of his new festival and took photos with his mobile, Vince Power, the Briton who was in charge of the event for several years, sat in a corner of this space for hours.
The night still holds some joy for the British subjects with names like Tom Grennan and a good dance ending with the Belgian Lost Frequencies.
On Friday, with all the stages already underway, you will be able to see names like Guitarricadelafuente, Cariño, Dorian, Ginebras, The Kooks, Delaporte, Two Door Cinema Club, Serial Killers or Steve Aoki among many others.
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