It boasts 45,000 people in attendance, nine days of camping, three full days of music, five stages, more than 100 bands and deejays, and a handful of sunny beaches. It all started eight years ago in 1995 with The Jesus Mary Chain, The Cranes and Echobelly, and it continued this year with The Cure, The Chemical Brothers, and Radiohead. It’s the International Festival of Benicássim, known among festival goers, or fibbers, as simply FIB (Festival Internacional de Benicássim). The initial investment may be a little overwhelming (about €110), but it’s worth the ride if you happen to be in Spain during the month of September and up for a thrill. The festival is a 9-day whirlwind centered around alternative rock and electronica music that will leave your head spinning from the excitement and over stimulation.
I heard of the festival in Benicássim several months before it began from some friends in Madrid. Before I knew it, I had forked out 110 euros and had nothing to show for it but a small paper ticket for something I wouldn’t even see until three months down the line. Four of my friends took the same plunge. I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d gotten myself into. I’d been in Spain nearly a year and I’d never heard of this place called Benicássim.
Apparently, foreigners and Spaniards know Benicássim for little else than this annual festival. This is probably because it causes the population to grow by 45, 000 in a matter of days and has therefore contributed greatly to the town’s energetic scene. I immediately picked up on this mood when I arrived there on a rainy night at the end of August and saw the mobs of people arriving for the festival, literally swarming the modest streets of the otherwise sedated resort town. We stopped a couple of times to ask directions to our campsite, but it wasn’t much help because everyone we asked was a tourist too.
Finally, after following some local police and stopping at another campsite for directions, we found our place. We parked in the loading zone and as the rain sprinkled down, all five of us piled out of our rental car and started to unpack. There were cars lined both in front of us and behind us, and people grouped on the side of the road looking for dry spots to put their bags or filling shopping carts with coolers, blankets and tarps. Some were starting to walk in what I assumed was the direction of the campsite, so we threw our backpacks over our shoulders and followed.
Upon walking through the gates of the campground, a young guy with an orange T-shirt and a walkie-talkie led us to a crowded tarp and told us to wait there until they could show us to our campsite. It was already dark, but with the dispersed light of camping lanterns I could see row after row of trees sheltering busy shadows and dark domes. I didn’t get a clear image of the chaos though, until another walkie-talkie carrier led us down a dirt path toward the back of the campground. Then I could see that there were only about 10 cm separating some of the tents. People were practically camping on top of each other as they formed the growing Tent City.
We were led to one of the remaining vacant lots in the back corner of the campground and there was a mad scramble to grab tents and claim a spot. The clanging of hammers on tents stakes that followed echoed the mood of a chain gang or a rock quarry.
We set up our tents behind everyone else’s, trying to claim some personal space as the orange-shirted officials pointed and directed people to scoot their tents closer to their neighbors. No one was rushing, but there was definite eagerness to put down roots.
Then came the train.
The tracks were well hidden behind a row of trees and a ditch on the backside of the campground, so no one had a clue they were there until the train gave a faint whistle and flew by with mad fury. There were a few muttered obscenities in several different languages, and we were all immediately contemplating how to get further away from the deafening noise. That is, until it stormed by again. And again. And yet again. After a while, people began to make their own noise, not competing with the train’s but diving into the disorder and making it their own. It started gradually, but after a while the screams and whistles from the people at the campsite were almost as loud as the train itself. For the next nine days the train’s passing was the unofficial mood indicator of the campground, carrying everyone through the periodic lulls and accentuating the campground’s energy.
Catching the momentum from the first whistle of the train, we plunged into the festival and began our flexible routine of beach-going and time-wasting, trying to do everything as cheaply as possible. After the first night next to the train tracks we managed to move our tents to the next lot, a bit farther away from the tracks. Tent City was now a tent metropolis and there was just no escaping the screams, nor was there a real desire to escape.
It was now our second day, Tuesday. We still had until Friday before the music started, but there was no lack of things to do.
Over the eight years of its existence the festival has progressed from a simple three-day concert to a full-fledged tribute to art of all types. Posters announcing schedules of short films, theater and dance performances as well as fashion shows hung all over the main drag of Benicássim. Essentially, there was a way for fibbers to be busy at almost every moment of the day. And these were just the days without music.
Because the haze of laziness had crept over us and the beach proved to be much too inviting (plus the fact that we were hell-bent on not spending one more euro on our Benicássim experience), my friends and I never took advantage of any of the performances or films. We did, however, make time to see the only non-charging, non-music event, which was the “Ruta ArtÃstica,” an outdoor art show situated on the beach’s boardwalk. The show consisted of seven intriguing pieces, my favorite being a floating cloud resembling a bar of soap that was anchored invisibly to one of the beach’s piers. The art exposition got its start at last year’s festival in 2001, but has quickly become one of the festival’s favorites.
Other examples of what the festival’s catalogue calls “extra-musical activities” are the FIB popular culture courses. This year’s courses were “Fiction Radio,” a course designed by the Spanish National Radio Radio 3, and a course on basic digital audio composing. It was hard to tell how popular these courses actually were among a seemingly “party crowd,” but the general electronica flavor of the musicians and deejays playing at Benicássim probably attracted enough aspiring amateurs among the 45,000 who attended to fill the two courses offered.
Unlike these studious personalities, our first four days of Benicássim consisted of afternoon bouts on the beach, card playing, pasta eating, strolls on the boardwalk, and general staying up late to try and prepare for the late-night concerts to come. All this time there was a party everywhere you looked, whether they were the parties organized by the FIB crew (13 euros, please) or hand-bruising drum circles at the campsite.
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