Paul’s Gigography

Espacio Mad Cool Valdebebas-IFEMA Madrid 12-14 July 2018

Having done the UK and Ireland festival circuit – Witnness, Oxegen, Reading and Glastonbury over the years one thing I had never done was a festival on mainland Europe.

I was familiar with the likes of PinkPop (Holland), Rock Wrechter (Belgium) and Rock Am Ring (Germany) from reading about them but when my friend David was home from London in Christmas 2017, he suggested we do a European festival in the summer of 2018.

Thought about it for a second and we looked at where to go.  David suggested Nos Alive in Portugal but when I saw the line-up for Mad Cool in Madrid – Pearl Jam, Nine Nails, Depeche Mode, Queens of the Stone Age and Arctic Monkeys I was sold.

We booked the tickets and over the next few months flights were sorted and Air B&B booked. Something to look forward to in the summer.

The festival took place over three days on what was one of the greenest of festival sites as it was on astroturf.  No chance of it being a mud bath but this is Spain, and it was one of the hottest weekends I have ever experienced for a festival.

On the day of the festival, we booked an Uber to take us to the site which wasn’t far from where we were staying.

Thursday 12 July

Eels

Both David and I were surprised that we didn’t enjoy Eels set.  It had two pits, one for the fans and one for the VIPS which was empty.  I guess the lacklustre atmosphere playing in front of an empty pit and then to everybody else just killed the momentum.  Disappointing as we were both looking forward to seeing them.

Pearl Jam

One of the many bands I was eager to see having seen them in London the previous month before Eddie Vedder lost his voice!

Pearl Jam was the biggest draw for the weekend, playing for nearly two hours this was just the highlight of the weekend for me.

They played 24 songs, we had everything from the back catalogue including seven songs from the debut album, Ten with deep cuts like State of Love and Trust, some choice covers of Eruption (Van Halen) and Rockin’ In The Free World (Neil Young) with Eddie dancing like a mad man throwing tambourines into the crowd.

 The band fed off the vibes from the crowd and they really got them going.  Eddie even gave an emotional speech on love and positivity while drinking a bottle of wine.

Friday 13 July

Jack White

I can’t remember too much of Jack White’s performance.  He had a big crowd, but something wasn’t quite right for me and I even wandered off to another side of the festival and could still hear him in the background.  Was a bit hit-and-miss.

Young Fathers

This Scottish band had David’s interest and we headed to one of the tents to see them.  He liked them, I was a bit meh about it.  The set lasted about 40 minutes so it was quite short but they seemed to have gone down well.   I guess I was keener to see Alice in Chains next.

Alice in Chains

This was the third time I had seen the band post Layne Staley.  Having seen the original lineup back in 1993, it was great to see them again and we were treated to absolute bangers from Facelift and Dirt as well as new songs such as Check My Brain, The One You Know, Stone and Your Decision.

William DuVal is a fine singer, and the harmonies blend well with Jerry Cantrell.  He’s not Layne and he doesn’t try to be an imitation of him holding his own on stage.

Massive Attack

It was in the early hours of the morning that we headed to the Loop stage to see Massive Attack waiting inside a very intimate airport hangar but for some reason, they never showed up.

What happened?  Franz Ferdinard were playing at the same time on another stage and Massive Attack refused to come on because of the sound bleed coming from the other stage.  There were quite a lot of disappointed people

Saturday 14 July

By Saturday both myself and David were knackered.  Doing three-day festivals in your late forties is not all that it is cracked up to be.  Even David admitted that festivals were a young person’s game these days.

Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age managed to attract a crowd only second to Pearl Jam.  The band were in tremendous form.

During the middle of No One Knows, Josh Homme noticed that fans were trying to get close to the stage.  One thing I also noticed was that were two pits at the front, one for the fans and the other one for VIPs.

Josh wasn’t having any of that and stated he wasn’t playing until security let all the other fans in.  Turning up the notch he said, “I’m not playing until you let them in.” To help his cause, he fired up the crowd and urged them to chant, “Let them in! Let them in!”

Eventually, security gave in and there was a rush to the VIP area.  Job done Josh.  He knows to look out for the fans.

Depeche Mode

Coming on stage to the Beatles Revolution, Depeche Mode lit up the second big stage with belters like It’s No Good, Everything Counts, Personal Jesus and my all-time favourite Enjoy the Silence before ending with Just Can’t Get Enough.

Dave Gahan was in fine form sporting a waistcoat and putting in some amazing dancing moves.

Nine Inch Nails

A hard act to follow Depeche Mode?  Not quite as Trent Raznor and his merry men take to the main stage.  It’s just after 1am now and unfortunately, this is going to be the shortest set I am going to witness as I can’t stay around too long due to having to catch an early flight back home on Sunday morning.

Other bands that we caught over the weekend included Wolf Alice, Eels, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Arctic Monkeys, Rag ‘n’ Bone Man, The White Buffalo, At The Drive In and Fleet Foxes.