return from Unsound

jings crivens, what a weekend! Starting from the Netaudio festival on thursday which was tremendous, it was an early hungover rise on friday to meet my friend Rupert and head out to Luton airport for our flight to Krakow.

We were picked up at the airport and whisked straight to a bar/club called Pauza where we were to DJ for the next two days. Pauza is really just a nice little bar, and was the unofficial base for the festival organisers over the weeks length of the festival. People were super friendly and helpful, and within minutes of us arriving, we were set up on the turntables with two big cold Zywiec in hand.

We left for dinner about 8pm, and then to see Pan American play in St Katherine's Church, a lush big venue with lovely acoustics, however due to the very quiet nature of the performance and the effects of several beers, we were all feeling a little too sleepy and decided to head out to find the club for the evenings performances, a strange gallery space called Manggha, which we were told was specifically to feature the works of Polish artists inspired by Japanese art!
The first two acts on were pretty decent and got the place jumping as it filled up, but it was really Bruno Pronsatos' set that everyone on the dancefloor going for it, and then finishing with the swiss duo Galoppierende Zuversicht, who were also excellent.

Saturday morning was breakfast and some sight seeing before back in Pauza again. We started off with a much more chilled set as it was early afternoon, playing lots of drone, ambience and dub before feeling like we were being too mellow for a saturday, no matter what time it was. As me and Rupert got more drunk, we started playing around with the effects unit on the Pioneer mixer, and stopped ourselves before we went too far, laughing at how drunken DJs can be known to get too carried away with the effects. We got curtailed slightly short, as there was some problems with the DJ setup at the venue for the main saturday evening club, and the equipment we were using had to be taken over there. Saturday was the big night we were looking forward to - Fuck-buttons, Xiu Xiu, Boxcutter, Benga and Skream, and Pinch.

Fuck-buttons played pretty decenty, and Xiu Xiu were strangely entertaining. We missed all of Boxcutter as we managed to go backstage with a friend for some nice smoke and a needed seat and rest.

Benga and Skream had decided to do a back 2 back DJ set, and we all went out for the start of their set. They were pretty entertaining, with lots of posturing and shoutouts - pretty much just two drunken lads DJs all the big tunes, slugging back on bottles of vodka, and bringing out groupie ladies on stage to parade. It started off well, and i was enjoying their stage show, but as they kept going, the three bottles of vodka they had gotten through seemed to be doing a bit of damage and guess what.. yup! Drunken DJ discovers the Effects unit on the Pioneer Mixer, which was of course, the one we had been laughing about earlier! classic!

all in all, a magic weekend, well impressed by how beautiful Krakow was, and how well run the festival was. I would heartily recommend both a visit to the city and/or next years Unsound festival!

Labels: benga, dj, gig, holiday, krakow, skream