If anyone asked me about Binic a couple of years ago, I would probably guess that it was a Serbian town about 200 kilometres from the Hungarian border. And would I be interested in a festival there, especially a folk blues one? Well, I leave that to your imagination. But since a fateful conversation last year, I knew I had to go to the Brittany region of France (that is where Binic is located, geographically) to see the Binic Folk Blues Festival, which has been around since 2008. Binic is a Bretanese commune with a beach looking over the Atlantic Ocean so the festival is practically a beach party held traditionally over the last weekend of July with an insane selection of rock n roll bands from all over the place. For a long time, the festival has offered its program for free but recently a symbolic price tag was introduced.

So, this summer we hit the road to see if this seaside rock n roll festival lives up to the expectations… Due to this year’s Olympic Games getting to Binic was a challenge but arriving in this bucolic fishing commune and seeing rockers everywhere on the streets was a surreal experience.

We didn’t make it to the actual start of the program but that was fine because many of the bands played multiple gigs over the weekend. Including but not limited to:

Tramhaus

Interesting post-punk (if this label means anything) band from Rotterdam – they haven’t exactly caught my attention with their recordings but their show was surprisingly full of energy and got me carried away. And of course I never went back to listen to their recorded stuff but the gig was still quite memorable.

The Judges

A young Australian rock n roll band from Melbourne with their first and only album released last year (via Anti Fade / Total Punk). Starting with The House Always Wins, we get a youthful cocktail of riffs and being judged by the frontman. We saw them a couple of times including while we were feasting in a Carrefour parking lot but they didn’t really seem approachable, just very cool and detached.

Dion Lunadon

Having seen this band for the third time within a year and they are always like fine wine. Dion brings out those stupid chains every single time to slaughter his guitar with them but no, it is not ridiculous! He might be the only person on this planet who could get away with it.

Gob Psychic

The regret… of missing them out.

Wine Lips 

Energetic psych garage from Canada who are total crowd pleasers in a good way. We caught both of their shows at the festival and they just know how to make a party and they seem to be really nice people. Here they are a couple of months earlier at KEXP:

Goutlaw

Sleazy, deranged Australian band who are surprisingly entertaining on the stage and to be honest, I was looking forward to their show a lot! They have a great album that was put out by Beast Records (who are involved in the festival to some extent, I guess) last year and the band doesn’t disappoint. And Goutlaw also have a lot of personality and a frontman who knows how to be funny in one moment, then frightening 2 secs later.

A place to bury strangers 

Unpopular opinion: this gig was a joke 🙂