All the hits you can handle
Sometimes you need a break from the guitars and fancy a commercial based dance and at Rockness, this mantle was successfully handled by Crookers. The Italian duo were easily one of the most fortunate acts of the night, benefitting from the downpour which brought a greater number of people into their tent than may have been expected but the boys certainly made the most of it, judging the mood and feel of the evening just right, blending the commercial with the techno to make the evening come alive and set the tone before the headline acts.
They have a debut album being prepared for release at some point this year but their set was a mixture of the old and the new, the borrowed and some blue language from the songs and crowd. Yes, as you would always expect from any Scottish crowd on the up, the chant of “here we, here we, here we fucking go” was reverberating all around the tent and upping the ante and tempo throughout their set.
It may be 15 years since the Beastie Boys launched ‘Ill Communication’ onto the world but ‘Sabotage’ still has enough zip and venom to make any crowd explode. The end of the set was racing to a positive conclusion and it was all kicking off inside, proving that sometimes people just want to dance without caring who or what is supplying the tunes.
Rockness is the perfect festival for this type of performance, enabling people to dip in and out whilst being guaranteed of a major hit or two. It’s a laid back festival with regards to what is going on but it definitely has a dance edge and an air of being off your head, both factors that sit well with commercial dance music. Its not one of the usual sets that you would choose as a key highlight of a festival but given the more relaxed nature of Rockness, it slotted in perfectly to the feel good yet non-stop energy of the evening.