COCK BLOC'D

I popped my BLOC weekender cherry at Butlins in sunny, sunny Minehead! With five main stages playing a variety of techno, funky, grime, garage, dubstep, live experimental and oh yeah, I.D.M (intelligent dance music...duh?!). Yep, with a term like I.D.M there were bound to be a few music geeks... the majority being boys…..well you are the company you keep, right?!


Personal highlights were the Autonomic DJs D Bridge and Instra:mental, especially when they dropped sleazy voyeuristic track Watching You. Also watching MC Dynamite giving vocal encouragement to the ravers was a great sight! Did any one else think her mic was a bit loud? Still, it was great to see her live and when Zinc dropped BOOO the crowd went mental! Luke Vibert hypnotized us with a wicked set, sending followers into an orgy of robotic dance moves and Reso went b2b with brothers grim, Vent.

Never scared of a bit of pounding techno, DJ Surgeon, a dude who is a bit of a legend on the Birmingham techno scene, spangled ravers by stepping up to the decs with a harem of yoga ladies! Another techno treasure was Derek May who sent BLOC out with a bang and had us all doing a ‘ho down’!

Even though there were a massive amount of great producers and DJ's, many playing live Ableton sets, there was still a real lack of live band performances with the Anti Pop Consortium and Salt N Pepa being the only two I managed to see. The NY divas bought an amazingly cheesy and energetic edge to Saturday night. The tunes were heart warming, nostalgic and part of their set included a sing-a-long to Motown tunes and 80's classics! The gals have still got it and are looking fine. They gave us warm and fuzzies with tunes like Shoop, Let's Talk About Sex and Push It, obvs, shouts out to Spinderella - what a great DJ!


Sadly I missed Kode9 b2b with Martyn, but I have a feeling they will be playing together in London soon! I am also an idiot for missing Fly Lo, Mix Master Mike, Roska, Raffertie and loads more, but what can you do when your pals want to hang in the arcades winning teddies, shooting Zombies and riding Ducati's?! We also hung out in the BLOC pub which had a family vibe, on the Sunday we caught a sick girl DJ crew and danced with men in wedding dresses!

A holiday park for electronica lovers who want to smell good and stay dry.. If you are a gal into electronica - get your butt to this festival and represent...'To many men, to many men!'


Bloc gets 4.5/5.