RockNess 2012

Kamie Kilty

With the title of ‘The most beautiful festival in the world’ RockNess 2012 certainly had some expectations to live up to. As we drove through foggy Inverness on Friday afternoon we finally arrived at the RockNess site where the beauty was unveiled. Standing on the hill in front of main stage the view was really exceptional – with Loch Ness (maybe even Nessie!) peacefully lurking behind the chaos.

RockNess has also won NME’s ‘Best small festival’ award for the second year running and it’s not surprising when you have acts such as Ed Sheeran, Deadmau5 and Biffy Clyro play. That in itself deserves an award! Over the weekend many acts made their way to Inverness to play the festival and we managed to check some of them out…

On the Friday evening we made our way down to the GoldenVoice Arena to watch the ever so delectable ginger that is Ed Sheeran. The man is a musical genius and managed to find time in his ever so hectic schedule to give old Nessie a visit! He definitely knew how to work the Scottish crowd by chanting what has to be our favourite saying at a gig/festival… Have you guessed it?

Oh yes, Ed Sheeran rejoiced ‘Here we, here we, here we f*cking go.’ This certainly pleased the crowd as there was an uproar of chanting which was so loud I am almost certain it could have awoken the sleeping beauty that is the Loch Ness Monster!

Aside from waking Nessie, Ed played one of his biggest hits – ‘The A Team’ which has got to be the highlight of his set. Ed allowed the crowd to sing the last chorus with little or no input from himself. The sound of the whole tent singing rang in your ears and this was just incredible. During his set, Ed also found the time to thank the tent for buying his album or even illegally downloading it.

We managed to catch a quick glimpse of Ed as he exited the stage and was escorted to his dressing room with what I like to call – “Ed’s entourage”. He found the time to stop and take photos with a select few people backstage and overall was a pleasure to watch.

It wasn’t just Ed that we managed to catch a glimpse of over the course of the festival weekend. We also watched the likes of Mumford & sons, DJ Fresh, Annie Mac, Deadmau5, Little Comets, The Cuban Brother’s and The View.

The View certainly put on a show at this year’s RockNess Festival and the crowd went so wild the tent in itself was near to collapsing. Ourselves at Love Music; Love Life managed to cram our way to the back of the Clash tent to get involved in the action. However, after noticing a few of the rather large metal poles that were keeping the tent up slowly come out-of-place we decided to make a dash for the exit where there was a bustling crowd awaiting to pounce through the tent’s entrance.

It’s safe to say The View were definitely on fire! Every Scottish crowd loves a Scottish band. It was therefore a pleasant surprise when we were informed that The View would in fact play again on the Sunday of RockNess in the GoldenVoice Arena. They kicked the set off with a golden oldie that gets the crowd going every time – ‘Same Jeans.’ The whole tent erupted at this point with people all around having a good old dance and sing-song. During both sets The View unleashed some new music for our ears to feast upon taken from their forthcoming album “Cheeky For A Reason” which will be released on the 9th of July.

On Sunday afternoon we decided to sit at the main stage to take in our surroundings and chill out for a while, as we had been on our feet for quite some time running from stage to stage. During this time we had the pleasure of watching the Cuban Brothers. They were highly entertaining to say the least, covering classic tunes with unbeatable dance moves and outfits that would have been fit for a superhero! They also had the time to impersonate the Scottish accent whilst chatting to the main stage crowd, surprisingly they pulled the Scottish accent off very well. The Cuban Brothers also found the time to drag one lucky woman from the crowd to join them on stage, however the security guards appeared to have collected the wrong girl from the crowd. This itself was also very entertaining. After pleasing the crowd some more with their ever so eccentric set and banter The Cuban Brothers excited the stage for a short moment. Only to our surprise when they returned they had nothing on but some skimpy underwear, which they appeared to enjoy wearing, whilst they danced around the stage throwing in some pelvic thrust movements too. This was the finale to a very unexpected and entertaining set!

RockNess certainly excelled itself this year with a great line up to suit everyone and every genre.

Over the course of the weekend we also managed to explore the site to see what was on offer to the festival revellers. We had the luxury accommodation of VIP camping for the full weekend. VIP camping has many different facilities to offer such as hot showers, flushable toilets and a sneaky entrance into the main arena which is a very short walk from the VIP camp site, for those of you who don’t like to trek for miles to catch your favourite band. It also had a giant garden of flowers which were lit at night with benches, so you could take a seat after an exhausting day of drinking, dancing and eating.

Aside from VIP camping and the luxuries that it brings, the main arena also offered many attractions throughout the weekend such as a Chapel, many bars , Jagermeister truck, The Big Wheel and we can’t forget Domino’s pizza!

Having never been to RockNess previously I was really unsure of what to expect especially with the title it holds. However, the festival itself attracted people and artists from all over to come together at Loch Ness for one weekend and offer an absolute beast of a festival.

Let’s hope Nessie enjoyed it as much as we did!

You can also view our full set of photos from RockNess now by clicking here.