Melt! Festival 2008

Essentially a boutique music festival, held annually in Berlin,Melt!’sline-up is mainly electronica-based. The bill this year included artists such as: Hot Chip, Roisín Murphy, Bjork, Bookashade, MEN and more. Camping is abundant, tickets are cheap (95 quid for the weekend) but along with the perks that the boutique label brings- smashing food, eclectic line-up- come the pitfalls inherent- shoddy organising, lacklustre security, and an odd location. Advertised as being ‘20 minutes from Berlin’, it is in fact 20 minutes outside of Dessau. Dessau is 2 hours outside of Berlin. So Melt! is 2 and a half hours outside of Berlin. Dessau, though full of Unesco World Heritage Sites, is no Berlin. Fact. I decided that I was too old and cranky to put up with camping for a weekend, and so stayed in a hotel with some friends. There was, supposedly, a regular shuttle bus that would bring us from the hotel to the festival ground, and back again. Supposedly. 30 euro worth of supposedly. It never came. I lie. It brought us to the festival each day, without fail, but seemed to stop working after 11pm. Which is no use when there’s a Sleepless Floor to be availed of.

The 5 stages- including the sublime ‘Sleepless Floor’ that played pumpin’ beats non-stop from mid-day Friday until 2pm Monday-are well spaced out on the small(ish) site, and around them plentiful concession stands are dotted. One of the musical highlights was Jape on Saturday night, followed an hour later by Roisín Murphy’s incredible set. 6 costume changes during 8 songs. What a woman. What stamina. Incidentally, Jape was staying in my hotel. I’d seen him over breakfast that morning. Had I enough energy to say hello, I would have done so. But I didn’t. Apologies. Bjork on Sunday was equally amazing. Her set began with a full brass band with flags on their heads, and ended with said brass band dancing wantonly around the stage. Lowlight? Uffie. Without a doubt. I know the writers here have already expressed how they feel about Miss Anna, but I genuinely liked her before I saw her perform live. Standing stock still amongst a crowd of sweaty neon, listening to her rap over Tiesto tracks, screaming ‘Fuck dem Hatas!’ ? In a word? Dire. It was like someone’s end of party performance from My Super Sweet 16. ‘OMGZ! B-cuz I’m mega-into hip-hop I’m gunna MC! Best Party Evah!’. However, none of the stages were actually signposted. This lead to, among other things, wild confusion. I thought that I had spent an hour happily watching Bookashade at the Gemini tent. I hadn’t. I was, instead, watching an entirely different band at the Gemini dance tent. And on it went.

Though I had a good time in end of all, I can’t promise that I’ll return. A cheap ticket is no pay-off against organisation. On the first night, while waiting to get in, an actual stampede broke out, while the security guard (there was but the one) stood by and let 200 people push down barriers to move 3 places up in the queue. A friend was made wait 4 hours while her booking through lastminute.com was scrutinised, and her credit card poked about with. Others simply dug a tunnel around the back of the site and climbed through that. Perhaps, as the festival expands (as I’m sure it will), these glitches will be ironed smooth, and a more efficient teutonic system put into place. However, like I said, I don’t know if I’ll stick around to see it happen.