Wakestock started life eight years ago as a small wakeboarding competition followed by a party held in a car park.
Today, however, Wakestock is the biggest festival of its kind in Europe, and it’s one of the most important dates in the extreme sports calendar, with thousands of people converging on the Llŷn Peninsula every year to enjoy the competitions by day and music by night.
This year, S4C will bring highlights of the festival to the viewers at home. Wakestock will be presented by Sarra Elgan, who will bring the best of the wakeboarding competitions and musical entertainment to the screen.
As well as the international artists playing at the festival, Radio Luxembourg and Genod Droog, two of the Welsh music scene’s biggest bands, will also perform. Dyl Mei from the Genod Droog, who come from the Porthmadog area, is looking forward immensely to playing at the festival for the first time.
“It’s always nice to play in a local festival, but Wakestock is different because it draws bands from all over the world to a field in Llŷn,” he says.
Among the other artists taking part are Mark Ronson, the Happy Mondays and The Streets – and there will also be a very special performance by musical sensation Duffy, who came second in S4C’s talent show, WawFfactor, back in 2004. It will be the girl from Nefyn’s first performance in her local area since the runaway success of her album, Rockferry.
Dyl Mei is looking forward to seeing Mark Ronson, a producer who’s worked with the Kaiser Chiefs and Amy Winehouse, as well as The Happy Mondays, a band who first came to prominence at the end of the 1980s.
“I’m sure Mark Ronson will be very good,” says Dyl, who’s won the best producer award four times at the Radio Cymru Roc and Pop awards.
“And Happy Mondays should be a spectacle,” he adds.
© 2008 S4C
O Gymru / Made in Wales