Festival Review: Festival No. 6
With an outstanding line-up, the perfect fashion partner in Diesel and the fairytale landscape of Portmeirion village – we know we’re in for a beautiful weekend at Festival No.6. The first band I catch are Bird, hidden away on the Lost in The Woods Stage. The surroundings not only suit their name but their music, with atmospheric guitars and animalistic howls captivating the audience. Next up Temples bring their signature 60s psychedelic sounds to the estuary, wielding twelve string guitars, sparkly jeans, and layers of velvet. It’s a bohemian and lavish offering to a civilised festival crowd, and ‘Shelter Song’ goes down a storm with bluesy riffs and plenty of tambourine shaking.
Dashing over from the village to the main festival site, Money stun an audience of early fans from their hometown and a brand new audience. Layers of reverb set to hypnotise the crowd into worshipping their spiritual sound, and rare rendition of ‘Cold Water’ ends the set in a euphoric state. Over on the main stage, Everything Everything please the audience with a rendition of ‘My Kz, Ur Bf’, as the audience gears up for the first headliner of the weekend, James Blake. Blake’s set moves shifts between subdued and intimate to heavy and bass driven, before ending with his iconic cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘A Case of You’ and wishing the crowd good night.
As the sun rises on the festival site on Saturday, it seems the rain is finally over and we can set to enjoying the serene surroundings in their full glory. John Cooper Clarke draws a large crowd in Portmeirion village, with the backdrop to his performance far-fetched from the clubs and pubs of his mancunian roots. Back on the main site, Daughter offer an intensely emotional set with a fierce vulnerability which is hard to place, with the band making use of heavier guitar parts than on their recorded work. Over on the main stage, Lianne La Havas shines and declares her love for her first Welsh performance, however the highlight of the weekend (alongside the festival site), is My Bloody Valentine, who perform an outstanding set to those who had seen them the first time round, and those who were too young to remember. The band offer a mesmeric set of songs from their recent album mbv, alongside classics including ‘Only Shallow’ and ‘You Made Me Realise’ which engulf the audience in a wall of distortion and shimmering guitars.
With our ears still ringing we set off through the dark towards the woods where Diesel, our favourite denim stalwarts and Festival No.6 fashion partners, were throwing an intimate, soon to be infamous, rave. DJ sets from Ben Pearce and Isaac Tichauer set the shrouded enclosure alight with warped beats, minimal grooves and late night house sounds see us through until the early hours.
Sunday is tainted by the rain, with bands being rescheduled and the closing of stages. However, endurance is certainly paid off by an iconic performance from Chic who work their way through the hits before a glittery cast of dancers invaded the stage. The Manic Street Preachers follow, just hours before the release of their latest record ‘Rewind the Film’. The band end on the anthemic ‘Design for Life’, leaving the crowd euphoric in the fact that they survived the Welsh weather.
– Words and photos: Alice Simkins
