The Mallorca Pop Festival

Inedible burgers, indescribable toilets and virtual hypothermia. As introductions to music festivals go, the Hollywood festival in Staffordshire in 1970 should have been a deterrent to have ever again gone near some God-forsaken field in the English countryside. But 14-year-olds never learn. The promise of more Grateful Dead, Family and Traffic was just too great.

Back in the day, music festivals were the domain of the longhair. Popular music applied rules of strict demarcation. The type of band which could appear was regulated as was the appearance of those who attended. Desmond Dekker, just as an example, wouldn't have been allowed in the same county as Free let alone on the same stage. Nor, mercifully for all the pacifist longhairs, would have been the ska lovers with very large boots and very short hair.

Yet, what had been the first real pop festival, Monterey, had an eclectic line-up. Lou Rawls and Otis Redding were the soul antithesis of the tripped-out Dead and the folksy Mamas & The Papas. Dionne Warwick should also have appeared but had finally discovered the way to San Jose and had been double-booked.

The rigidity of popular musical genres that came about in the 1960s continued well into the 1980s. What started to break it down was the emergence of rap and of dance, in particular the Balearic sound that broke out of Ibiza.

Come forward to the current day and to an event such as BBC Radio One's Hackney Weekend, and it is clear just how little rigidity now exists. Kasabian and The Vaccines can play alongside Plan B and Jay-Z and Ed Sheeran and Ben Howard in one mix that is categorised simply as contemporary popular music. Rihanna, a Hackney headliner, can team up with Coldplay to create something as startling and cross-genre as "Princess of China". 

During Hackney, there were numerous references to Ibiza as well to Mallorca. And for Mallorca, read Magalluf. BCM and Mallorca Rocks were name-checked, but what was unexpected was the almost reverential tones that were reserved for Magalluf. Despite all the bad publicity and negative connotations associated with the resort's name, it is easy to forget just how important Magalluf is, especially when it comes to popular music and to the absence of musical barriers.

This importance is about to be made greater. The Fiesta Hotel Group, which together with the Ibiza Rocks Group created the Mallorca Rocks hotel, is to expand the Mallorca Rocks name. The Fresh Apartments Magamar are to become the Mallorca Rocks Apartments, while the Fresh Aparthotel Jungla is to also come under the Mallorca Rocks name from next year.

The Mallorca Rocks concert line-up is like a mini-Hackney, minus the Marshes, spread over several weeks There is no one dominant musical genre; it is a series of concerts that is a celebration of the staggering vitality and openness of today's pop and a reflection of Zane Lowe's musical direction.

Some of the Hackney artists are regulars in Magalluf and do the rounds of various venues and festivals during the summer. Ibiza's 123 (1,2,3 July, geddit?) features, for example, David Guetta and Tinie Tempah. But more remarkable, far more remarkable, is the line-up on the mainland for the Benicàssim festival from 12-15 July. Florence + The Machine, Example, The Maccabees, Chase & Status, Jessie J, Dizzee Rascal, The Stone Roses, Noel Gallagher, New Order and ... and Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan!?

Summer and music go hand in hand. Summer and pop music, that is. Summer is meant to be a time to be alive, not half dead and condemned therefore to the miserable sawing of a cello or the condescension of applause for some local folk-music combo with pipes and whistles and incomprehensible lyrics. Outside of Magalluf, however, mostly all you get are the tribs. Mallorca needs a festival. It needs a Hackney, one that is in tune with the egalitarian nature of today's pop, enjoyed by tourists of different types and by those of different ages. But not in Magalluf.

There must be some finca somewhere that would fit the bill and fit 100,000 people or more over three or four days. The trouble is that, even if there were, they'd never be able to arrive at an agreement. Land law for this, environmental law for that, protests by locals, protests by all manner of opposition groups (most obviously the enviros); they would never manage it.

But somehow in Valencia they can manage it and stage Benicàssim. If only there were a Farmer Ted, like the Farmer Ted who gave over his field for the Hollywood festival. And unlike 1970, the burgers would be edible, the toilets would have vanilla fragrance pumped into them and you certainly wouldn't run the risk of hypothermia because you had forgotten to take a sleeping-bag with you.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.