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Music

Hideout Review: Day One

Cheap pizza and surprise grime collabs on our first day on Zrce beach.

Buoyed by the success of our boat party, THUMP bounced down to Zrce beach bright eyed and bushy tailed for the first official blast of Hideout 2015.

For the uninitiated: Hideout sprawls itself over the pebble-dashed shoreline, splitting itself into five beach side clubs. There's the semi-secluded swank of Kalypso and the big-room-outdoor-opulence of Papaya, Euphoria's charmingly unfurnished functionality, and finally the poolside duo of Aquarius 1 and 2. Traversing between stages is a painless process and there's enough huts knocking out cheap chips and even cheaper pizza to get you through the trek, day or night.

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Our day began in earnest over at Aquarius 1 where Skream and his pals — including wAFF and Simon Baker — got the early afternoon sun worshippers bobbing politely in the shallowest pool we've ever seen, cocktails and iPhones in hand. The boys' club kept things resolutely driving and, largely, pretty minimal. Pleasantly undemanding stuff for a Tuesday afternoon.

Photos by Adrian Choa.

Occasionally we find ourselves ambling over to Papaya, slipping through the underdressed hordes, catching a bit of Eats Everything here and a smidgen of Richie Ahmed there. Jamie Jones was Jamie Jones and had the snapbackers in raptures throughout his set.

Also for the uninitiated: Hideout takes a two hour break between eight and ten PM. The clubs empty entirely, pools are drained, bars stop serving. All you can really do is dine out on the aforementioned cheap as chips pizza and stare out over the rolling rocky hills that hug the shoreline and loom over the festival site.

On the strike of ten however, the kick drums started thudding again and Hideout came back to life. We based ourselves at Aquarius 2 for the majority of the evening, enjoying sets from Mike Jones, B.Traits, and Waze & Odyssey. The latter's disco-tinged set was light relief on a day dominated by moody, churning house, and steely, monochrome techno.

Wanting to take in as much as possible, we also managed to squeeze in a bit of My Nu Leng over at Euphoria. The genre-hopping duo had the crowd going absolutely bananas at points. There aren't many sets at Hideout which could go from Kool and the Gang to jungle to "Truffle Butter" to wobbly dubstep in the space of a few minutes. Suitably energised, we bounded over to Aquarius 1 to see the end of Skream's second set of the day, culminating in New Order's timeless "Bizarre Love Triangle" before he handed the headphones over to Green Velvet.

The weirdest moment of the night was yet to come. Over at Papaya, Loco Dice was bringing his regular big room beats to a middling response. Before, pretty much unannounced, he brought UK rapper Giggs on for a world premier of their new collaborative track. It was unexpected to say the least, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it more than anything else we'd heard all day. Grime and tech-house: it's the new thing. Maybe.

Tiredness then got the better of us, so we stumbled back to our apartment, readying ourselves for another day on the beach.

Stream Hideout as it happens right here.

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