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Exclusive review and photos from the Red Bull Reporters that totalkiss.com sent to this year’s Sonar Festival!

Red Bull Reporter is a nationwide search to find the best young music & culture, and sports writers, filmmakers, photographers and presenters, giving them the chance of a lifetime: to use their skills and indulge their passions as a Red Bull Reporter.

The most talented young media makers could be selected for one of many exciting assignments – each designed to give them an amazing experience as a working member of the media – covering world-class sports, cutting-edge music and innovative culture events. What’s more, Red Bull events happen all over the world and they’ll be dispatching Red Bull Reporters out there to cover them!

You might remember we tied up with Red Bull Reporter on one of their exciting music assignments to recruit an aspiring photographer and writer to go backstage and report on the Red Bull Music Academy Stage at Sonar Festival in Barcelona!!!

The Red Bull Reporters got fantastic access to this great event – including the Red Bull Music Academy stage featuring Jamie Woon, Goldilocks and Lukid.

The lucky winners who impressed the Red Bull Editorial team with their submissions were Michelle De Villers (chosen as photographer) and Heather Welsh (chosen as the writer).

We now have their written review of the festival and gallery of photos from the amazing event for you to see here first…

Check out a gallery of Michelle’s photographs from Sonar here.

Sonar Festival Review – by Heather Welsh

Festivals abroad really do sound like the perfect way to spend a long weekend. And Sonar, located in the beautiful Barcelona, is definitely worth the flight. In fact, it’s really rather special, playing host to a wealth of extrememly talented electronic music artists as well as providing mind-blowing visuals from up and coming digital artists too.

2009 was the fifth year Red Bull’s Music Academy colaborated with Sonar Festival, and for three days, the festival site proudly boasted a whole stage set aside for up and coming Red Bull Music Academy artists. In the same space was another, bigger stage and by night, the bigger acts filled the out of town arena.

Day one, and body and mind were in the zone. I was going to see everyone and everything, and I was going to have fun! Clean toilets, check. Fresh faced punters, check. Midday sun, check. Luckily, the Red Bull tent provided us with some much needed shade so we could get out of the heat and really enjoy the first act, there was even some ‘grass’ (plastic, a little too spikey) for us to perch our excited bottoms upon!

The festival’s day time location is a real winner, as I walked through the streets of Barcelona I heard beats that enticed me through sets of gates. Towering above the site were Barcelona’s apartments and churches. I’m not sure there are any other festivals, in which you can see a majestic church or other people’s laundry flapping in the breeze whilst you swig a beer and tap your feet to whoever is on stage. And I think this is a truly great thing, you are immersed in Barcelona’s culture from the word go.

Most people would agree it is a hard task to get a crowd moving at midday, especially if, like a lot of DJs, you are used to playing to an inebbriated group of ravers! But Spanish DJ pair Mweslee Vs Chelis did a good job, and by the time Ethio-Jazz musician Mulatu Astatke and UK band The Heliocentrics hit the stage, the ground was shaking. Getting there for the first act meant you could sit and soak up the sun and the atmosphere at your own pace, and also sneak in a bit of people watching; it seems the Spanish people are a lot of good-lookers!

A second highlight of the day for me was French DJ, Debruix. He picked up the tempo with some heavy basslines and choppy synth and the crowd just got bigger and bigger. Next up was the wonderful Jamie Woon from the UK. He started on his own, with only a small box on stage to accompany him “It’s a loop sound player” he explained, “you can record what’s going onto it and what’s going on top of it. You can’t go back though!”. Woon takes his inspiration from soulful artists such as Stevie Wonder, Jeff Buckley, John Martyn, Louis Taylor and Radiohead. Jamie also appreciated French DJ Debruix, who played before him, “He’s was one of my favourites from the Red Bull stage and you can totally tell he’s French!”

After his first song, Jamie’s band members, Dan See and Dan Gulino joined him. The three had met and formed quite naturally after Woon had seen them playing with Jono McCleery. Their instrumentals ran around Woon’s echoing vocals to create a chilled out soulful vibe, I could see why he has caused BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs to sit up and take notice.

Day two and body and mind were prepared again, suncream was applied and fresh beer tokens were to hand, musical anticipation was in the air! The sun was out again by the time Spanish DJ El Santo performed, who, it must be said, did look a tad ridiculous in his elephant mask, it cried “look at me” and appeared to be a blatant copy of tech-trance DJ Deadmau5 who is never without his signature mouse head on stage. Midee’s sound was quite minimal with some lawn-mower-esque noises and some animal squeals thrown into the mix too. I think I’d describe it as marmite for the ears, you can’t doubt his originality though!

A few beers later and La Roux had hit the SonarVillage stage. You really can’t fault her voice, she was hitting the notes but she didn’t seem to be putting her all into it. Saying that, she played all three of her singles to please the crowd, ending with chart hit ‘Bulletproof’. Just don’t try and join in!

Sonar by Night was my next stop, and I wasn’t prepared for the huge scale of the three stages, the Club, Lab and Pub were all huge, I can safely say I’ve never been to a ‘pub’ of that size before! The lighting was superb, and served well as a backdrop for huge sets by SebastiAn, Richie Hawtin and Crookers. For those who are less into the dance-beats there was the incredible Grace Jones and Little Boots, and on the Saturday night the epic Animal Collective.

Highlights from day three include the French crew dominating the Village, Breakbot played stuff reminiscent of Daft Punk and the more techy Outlines followed. Pedro Winters a.k.a Busy P finished Sonar by Day in style, “I think Sonar is the best festival in the world!” he shouted out into the adoring crowd.

All in all, Sonar, and the introduction of the Red Bull stage went down a treat. Alesha, 20, from London said, “ I like the mix between the music and the art, it’s really cool and really funky”. Robin, 24, travelled from Berlin and was also impressed; “I prefer the day festival, it’s great!”. And with this festival there’s no tents, so at the end of a day you can go back, prepare body and mind, and start it all again the next day!

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