Bang Face
From the 24th to the 26th of April 2009, 3000+ ravers descended on Pontins Holiday Park in camber sands Kent to join the craziness that is the ‘Neo rave Armageddon’ of Bang Face. Hosting 5 rooms including a swimming pool, a heavy line up of artists played a variation of Acid, Jungle, Hardcore, Gabba, Drum and Bass, Techno, Dub step and other experimental styles. Throughout the weekend there was a dress up theme of Space, with a competition on the Sunday to win tickets for next year. Accommodation was self catered chalets holding from 4-8 people, Bang Face TV was broadcast to every chalet showing highlights and interviews from the rave.
On the main stage Congo Natty, as expected, played a mix of old and new jungle classics like ‘police in helicopter’, ‘Everyday’ and ‘His Imperial Majesty’ not mixed amazingly well but got the crowd going and put on a good show with Rebel MC enthusing the crowd into action.
Later on in the night a veteran to the drum and bass scene, producer Dillinja smashed room two with his usual style of heavy bone breaking bass that himself and his followers love so much. His mix was seamless as usual and showed that he still has the skills that have made him so big in the scene.
Saturday night started with a Bang with the madness that was the swimming pool rave; I was looking forward to seeing the original jungle legend that is Remarc, who has been in the music scene since he was 13. He is one of the originators of Ragga Jungle and has just recently started up his own record label Definition Recordings. Unfortunately I missed most of his set as there was a huge cue for the pool but when I got in it was worth the wait, it was like no other rave I have been to before. There were about 90-100 people thrashing about in the water to some heavy Jungle with hundreds of inflatables hitting you in the head every few seconds including a 5 foot wide smiley face, which came dangerously close to the decks a fair few times. The vibe in there was amazing and Remarc was interacting well with the crowd; you could see he was really enjoying himself by the huge grin on his face which made it all the more worth the while.
Luna-c ‘The rave hero’ took over the decks next he played a mash up of music with an old skool feel to his set mixing Drum and Bass, Hardcore and Gabba keeping the energy high throughout, sending the ravers into total mayhem; with water and inflatables flying everywhere. They just couldn’t get enough of his music and just wouldn’t settle without ‘one last tune’ before the end.
A huge highlight for me had to be Current Value; no one would have dragged me away from seeing him. Current Value is from Berlin and produces dark Techy Drum and Bass sometimes described as Tech-step. His set sounded amazing on the huge stack of funktion one speakers. I did not notice at first how the rest of the audience was enjoying it as I could not keep still to these amazingly dark beats; when I came up for air I realised I wasn’t the only one who was being taken over by the music!
DJ Bizzy B was accompanied by the cheeky and lively MC TDK he played some wicked jungle tunes with loads of classics dropped. The crowd was really hyped up to hear ‘Big Bad and Heavy’ but for some reason he lost the mix and the same happened later with ‘Bad Ass’, which lost the crowd’s attention a bit but having said that it was a fun set and they handed out loads of free CDs and T-Shirts, which kept the crowd happy.
There were a few sets that I did not get the chance to see but that is the nature of a festival, I had feedback from a few people that Noisia’s set was different to what most were expecting it wasn’t their usual style of dark Drum and Bass, they actually played Breaks and Electro which for some was a bit of a disappointment. Hellfish, Altern-8 and Wisp were apparently all ‘Amazing’.
All in all Bang Face was a lot of fun and I will definitely be going again next year but next time with a better costume!
Review by Cassy Quinn of Underground Music
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