Worldwide Festival

Sete, France | July 4th- 7th

After arriving a couple of days late to this week long party in the sun-drenched South of France, we noticed that despite being halfway through and the heat pushing a sweaty 32 degrees, the morale had in no way lessened. With four stages dotted around the cutesy French fishing village, and music running for almost 24 hours a day, we knew immediately that sleep would be slipping down our list of priorities.

THURSDAY

So without any further ado, we donned our best swimwear and headed to the beach party, a sweltering thirty minute walk through the cliffs to the outskirts of Sete town. We were met with a funk based Cuban mix of tracks from Food For Ya Soul, and Sassy J provided some old hip-hop classics for good sing-a-long measure. As you’d expect, Tupac’s California Love went down an absolute storm.

Our first night (everyone else’s fourth) kicked off with Lefto at 12am. A few party tunes dropped in here and there among the serious, minimal beats that, admittedly, people weren’t really vybing to. Our impending rosé and Redbull induced headache was not being massaged accordingly. We just wana dance, man. Then Mount Kimbie took over at 1.30 much to our delight, with their eerie echo and blue lights giving us goosebumps.

Todd Terje’s set initially stalled with a five minute silence due to ‘technical difficulties’, while Gilles Peterson tried to soak up the time by polling the crowd on which country they originated from measured on scream volume. Eventually, Terje dropped Inspector Norse, which saw the crowd go appropriately fucking mental. Finally, Darksky took over at 4am, dropping pulsing, heavy thumping, head nodding tracks until the party slowed to halt come yet another glorious sunrise.

FRIDAY

After four hours of constantly interrupted sleep we emerged from the depths of our apartment to hit up the beach party for round two. Nickodemus combined Latin style house with something that sounded pretty damn funky. If we’d had the energy, we would have tangoed our way through to the end.

St.Christ stage rumbled into life at 8.30pm with Marcos Vale and Lucas Santtana, but as always, the arena didn’t get busy until around midnight. We feel this is totally due to the recovery period of four hours from the cava drenched beach parties to St Christ stage being so bone achingly short. Mala in Cuba took to the stage with incredible lighting and even better sounds. The red flashes, lazers and smoke created an awesome stage presence, and the two hours went by way too fast if you ask us. Mr. Raoul K kept the heavy and sometimes funky house beats going until the early hours, smashing his way through some fantastic mixes. Yet again, the sun rose before anyone wanted it to, and another party on the roundabout went on until the sun started to burn.

SUNDAY

After having to miss out on Saturday, we we’re eager to get back on it. The penultimate day of any festival is never pretty. Picture three thousand predominantly English revellers suffering from week long hangovers, heatstroke or worse. However, many adopted the ‘last night, last chance’ attitude and partied on through. Gilles Peterson and friends played at the beach until 8pm, with the highlights being Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes by Paul Simon combined with African drumming, and Luther Vandross and Lovebirds ft. Stee Downes forming the soundtrack to the last and best sunset.

The previous time we’d seen Bonobo, the whole thing was an absolute flop, his set here on the other hand, was fucking brilliant. Opening with Kiara, Bonobo had the entire crowd dancing, even the rude boiz at the back and follower Black Sands was equally as perfect. Mixing in fitting world music to the whole of the set and never breaking concentration, Bonobo has without a doubt re-earned his place in our top ten.

Skream had been conspicuously lurking around the back of the festival with a massive entourage, and when it was eventually his turn to play he was sweating more than us and head banging like an absolute maniac. Not skimping on the crowd pleasers, he dropped his own disco remix of Duke Dumont’s Need U 100% and slipped in some of Blurred Lines. A set that was promised as ‘techno-disco’ kind of wasn’t, but we loved it all the same.

Come 3.45am, Giles appeared, made a very quick very apologetic announcement explaining the Sete police had finally had enough, and asked everyone to leave quickly and quietly. Giles cut his own set off not even allowing Cashmere Cat to play ‘one more tune, one more tune, one more tune’ to the dismay of the crowd. Rumours were being bandied about concerning the real reason for the premature shut down, but all we really cared about was joining in with the nightly impromptu drumming on the metal statue on the roundabout.

Mr Peterson has executed yet another tasty, cultural music festival in a perfect location with minimal advertising and even less branding. Unfortunately, arriving late this year meant we missed out on Theatre De La Mer, a location described as ‘the best venue we have ever been to’ by about two hundred separate people. In that case, we will be returning next year, without a doubt.

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Words: Jenny Vidler