Just got back from OFF in Katowice, Poland. Genuinely excellent festival. Cheap (once you're here) a frankly ridiculous line up in terms of quality and variety, and a beautiful location. I can't recommend going to this enough. Reading through the Field Day posts, it looks like this is often the same weekend and had a lot of the same bands.

Highlights in no order

1. Oneida roping in the drummer from Liturgy and playing the entirety of Preteen Weaponry mid-set

2. Beefy security guards actually looking upset and close to tears at the prospect of listening to AIDS Wolf for an hour.

3. Dan Deacon. Never seen him before, so didn't know about all the stuff he does in his live sets. Had to cut the set 10 minutes early because he kept getting electrocuted / his light up skull fell on his desk / the desk collapsed after crowdsurfers plummeted onto it. Great scenes.

4. How to Dress Well playing in complete darkness after deliberately cutting the lights.

5. Factory Floor. Fucking HELL. I'd never head a note from this band before Friday night.

6. The festival site is literally at the end of a runway, so planes often take off and land, and also do stunts and things over the main stage during bands, notable during Liars on Sunday.

7. Junior Boys closing their set at sundown with Banana Ripple. Didn't realise they were so old / look old.

8. Dan Bejar having to read the lyrics to Bay of Pigs off a lyric sheet and even then got them wrong about 5 times. Is this an act? (I've seen him fuck up on video clips as well). You'd think he'd know a 2 year old song that he himself wrote, by now. Their set was great, and it was nice to hear My Favourite Year given the Kaputt Roxy Music saxamaphone treatment.

9. Barn Owl.

10. The general price, atmosphere, sound, food (all Polish, all good). The beer was 6 zloty which is about 1 pound 50, the same price as in a normal pub in a normal town here (IE no ludicrous price-hike). Also, there is a seperate drinking area so there's no beer=glass chucking fuckwittery. In fact, apart from one bellend in a Slayer T Shirt in the Dan Deacon Dance Pit, there was almost no fuckwittery all round.

11. Got the chance to see a load of bands I liked abour 12 years ago and would never have bothered paying for their own concert. dEUS, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Sebadoh etc.

Lowlights.

The weather on Sunday was literally the heaviest rain I've ever encountered, not just at a festival. Luckily it only lasted about 1 hour, but fuck it was bad.

A couple of band clashes which is inevetable. It's a carefully organised line-up, 4 stages but only ever 2 bands playing at the same time. The only clases that saddened me were Low vs Factory Floor (I saw FF), Oneida vs Deerhoof (I saw Oneida and didn't regret it for a second) and Xiu Xiu vs Destroyer (I saw Destroyer)

Highly unlikely, but did anyone else go?