First of all: There will be no public viewing this year. So the ones who think HURRICANE or every other festival is a huge gathering for football fans with the side effect that there are bands playing in the half-time break, should better stay at home.
The rest is business as usual. From June 20 until June 22 over 70.000 people will share 1.650 toilets and 532 showers (and mistake them for toilets), will probably get wet and muddy (we know it isn’t called HURRICANE without reason) and forget everything their parents told them about appropriate behaviour and dressing in public.
To justify the collective return to primitiveness (and the increasing ticket prices), there are nearly 100 bands playing on the four stages. The ones who really plan to see some of them and not only pitch their tents in order to burn them or to defend some absurd drinking-record, need to be well organized to get the best out of HURRICANE 2014.
FRIDAY
The festival weekend starts with THE DURANGO RIOT and I HEART SHARKS at 3 pm. Since the latter seem to invest more time in their style than in their music, we recommend to go to Swedish hard rock quartet THE DURANGO RIOT. They are far less pretentious and their latest single Ready Are The Headless promises an energetic show.
One hour later two acts that couldn’t be more different court the people’s favour. If you like to pogo to melodic, beer-friendly punk, you should go to Canadian punk rock old hands FUCKED UP who recently brought out their new record Glass Boys. If you prefer relaxed but ambitious blues, British newcomer GEORGE EZRA will make you happy and prove that his debut Wanted on Voyage has more to offer than the hit single Budapest (way too often played in the radio).
Friday’s shining art rock highlight will be ARCADE FIRE. The only apology not to obtain a place in the crowd is that you had the chance to see one of the other concerts of their tour.
If that’s the case, you could go to BAD RELIGION. The L.A. punk rock fossils exist since 1979 and played at the first official HURRICANE in 1997.
SATURDAY
You are one of the crazy guys who head for the festival area right after the breakfast and you are into wicked psychedelic post rock stuff? Than you should get to know SONIC. THE MACHINE at 12:30 am. The three German boys probably just reached legal age (they won some pupil’s band contest) but what they are doing with their pedalboards is outstanding.
In the evening the PIXIES and INTERPOL will rock the blue stage, both presenting their new records Indie Cindy and El Pintor, but hopefully they will delight their fans with evergreens as well.
If you have some energy left after that, you can either shake your head with Danish hard rock group VOLBEAT, dream away with LYKKE LI, sing along to LILY ALLEN or take it easy with BELLE & SEBASTIAN.
SUNDAY
For Sunday morning we recommend BLAUDZUN and REIGNWOLF against the hangover. BLAUDZUN plays intense folk pop while Jordan ‘REIGNWOLF‘ Cook and his electric guitar bring back the spirit of real dirty blues rock.
In the afternoon it will be hard to decide whether to go to YOUNG REBEL SET or MIDLAKE. Both bands play real good indie rock – if you like it enthusiastic with English accent, go to YOUNG REBEL SET, if you like it a little more complex with American accent, go to MIDLAKE.
If you like it enthusiastic and complex with all kinds of accents, you shouldn’t miss the wonderfully crazy electronic punk art collective BONAPARTE before losing it with THE BLACK KEYS.
The final acts of HURRICANE 2014 will be the German dancehall heros SEEED und the Berlin electronic geniuses MODERAT. SEEED will probably have a better show, still both gigs are perfectly suited to dance the night away and bring the festival to a worthy conclusion.
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