Playground magazine

FIB is possibly the toughest festival on the summer agenda: four days in the sun, hours and hours of concerts of some of the international music world's biggest names. It also is the festival that, apart from the sun, has a beach nearby, which makes the music marathon slightly less stressful. But we're not here to talk about the beach. We're here to talk about the concerts. So here's a list of the ten live shows we enjoyed the most at FIB 2012 (in alphabetical order).

You can look at the FIB pictures in our photogallery.

Of all the names on the bill this year, At The Drive-In was by far the most unexpected and impressive one. The El Paso band's reunion tour only had a few dates, so FIB was a must-see for many people. And the truth is, even though they disbanded over ten years ago, they still have it. Cedric transmitted all the songs' rage, many of them part of the classic post-hardcore songbook, with outbursts of uncontrollable insolence (there was no need to spit, hit the cameras or throw water on the photographers) and some weirder moments, like sipping from a coffee mug with a tacky Jesus Christ picture on it in between screams. Jim Ward gave it his all in the backing vocals, too. They played the exact same set-list as at Coachella, including the essentials from “Relationship Of Command”, “In/Casino/Out”, and “Vaya”. They finished, of course, with “One Armed Scissor”, which made for some savage moshing at the front. It was a pity they forgot about Iggy Pop's intro of “Enfilade”. “This station is now operational”, but until when?