October 26, 2008
Random
No Comments
Okay so it may have been 3 months ago, but its worth sharing!
When walking in the first thing that struck me was the complete lack of people. I arrived pretty much when it opened (Noonish), and people did continue streaming in until 8ish so it got pretty full. But for the first few acts we could get right up to the front of the stage, because there was no one there. Speaking of the first few acts..
The first act were The Troubadours. I was about 4 feet away from their frontman, I could’ve had a conversation with him while he was playing. But they were very good, I was surprised there weren’t more people there for them. Next up..
The Brightlights impressed me a lot. 3 years ago they were losing a local battle of the bands contest and then earlier this year they were opening V Festival. They attracted a lot more people to the stage but I was still at the front. They were very good, Inspired By in-particular I enjoyed a lot.
After the first few acts and a break the place started to fill up.
The weather was fantastic all day, sunny and hot, and with free ice cream in 6 different flavours all day, it was perfect. There were some distinctly strange things to go and see during the day, toe wrestling for one. Giant cows going round scaring children for another. There were also a lot of big Ben and Jerrys birthday cards to sign (as it was their 30th anniversary). The funniest things written were read out on stage by the guy who handled the intervals between music. Such gems as “You made me fat…But I love you.” were heard.
As we left for more ice cream the stage filled up for a singer who scared the living crap out of me. Florence Welch, who collectively with her band are known as Florence and the Machine. She reminded me simultaneously of a particularly show-offy toddler and a labrador on coke.
She was energetic you had to give her that, but with a distinct air of chemical enhancement about her. But she is one heck of a singer and they do make good music. One of the music genres listed on their Myspace is Melodramatic Popular Song, and thats exactly what I’d call it, its Melodramatic music.
Charlotte Hatherley formerly of Ash was up next with her band. She had rather a large band for a solo artist who plays guitar, I understand the stage manager at Ben and Jerrys thought she was going to be playing acoustically and by herself. He was apparently rather shocked when she turned up with a drummer (Rob Ellis) a bassist (Gary Kilminster) and another guitarist on top of herself (Jen Macro) as well as a lot of amps. Anyway, she was perfectly good but I have to admit it was not my kind of music, which was strange because I loved everyone else there, she didn’t seem to fit.
Shit pictures I know, I left to get ice cream and had to take my place on the right of the stage.
I enjoyed (the?) Delays a lot. They list The Manic Street Preachers as one of their influences and I’m not surprised, it comes through a lot in their music. I rate them highly and suggest you all go and check them out (all the band names are links to their site or myspace by the way).
Next up were The Guillemots. I knew this band fairly well before coming, primarily I have to admit from seeing Fife (lead singer) on Nevermind The Buzzcocks a while back. And I had the same favourite songs as everyone else in Get Over It and Red. But they played very good songs I hadn’t heard before like Madeup Lovesong 43 and Trains To Brazil.
They continued in their form of using strange instruments by coming on stage banging some scaffolding.
Lots of pictures follow, but I took a lot.
Next up were The Charlatans. There’s not much I have to say about them, as they were predictably great.
They played as well as you’d expect a band who’ve been together for almost 20 years to. Worth the price of the ticket (less than a tenner) 5 times over for them alone.
Some more pics from the day…
Top to bottom: Jerry of Ben and Jerrys! - One of the more crowded shots from later in the day, notice scary man in spider man tshirt (click for larger version) - Stilt walking guy striking strange pose and scaring small children respectively.
All in all the festival was fantastic, and worth the money several times over. The ticket was less than a tenner, I ate more than that in free ice cream, the line up was great, the weather was fantastic, the ticket proceeds went towards a wind energy project in Madagascar and as such the event had no carbon footprint.
Couldn’t have asked for more.
Sorry this has taken so long, innocent to follow soon.
August 23, 2008
Random
No Comments
If there’s one thing I know about British Athletes, it’s that there’s nothing that spurs them on more than knowing they’re pissing off millions of Australians.
I actually couldn’t have cared less about the Olympics until I heard we were annoying someone by winning, now I’m like “Come on GB hockey team! Take ‘em DOWN!”.
August 20, 2008
Music
No Comments
I’m a bit late writing this, as the festivals sort of ran away from me, and its rather hard to write comically about them so you just sort of have to write them as they happened.
We got to Hyde Park Corner station and had no idea where we were going, so we followed a large group of people who were thankfully going the right way. It was a fair walk to get to the gate, where a police woman told me off for having gum in my back pocket, apparently I was asking to be robbed, anyway.
Once we got inside the place looked quite impressive, there were 5 stages, a skateboarding ramp thing (technical term), lots of tents sponsored by people and obviously lots of vans of overpriced festival food.
It was pretty overcast when we got there and before long it started to rain, and o2 started handing out free ponchos, which were pretty good and made of thick plastic which served us well all day.
As well as the free wet weather gear, they had a promotion going where if you texted a number you’d get a code and you’d get a £5 voucher to spend at any of the food stalls and the chance to win prizes, such as going backstage and t-shirts and stuff I think. Point being, much credit to o2 for the freebies!
Then we went over to the o2 in Association with MTV Stage, where Ben Harper was doing a little acoustic set by himself before the rest of the music started. Almost immediately his sound cut out and no one could hear a word. Credit to him he jumped into the crowd of maybe 100 people and started to play there, allowing the 6 people immediately around him to hear and see, leaving the rest of us with not a lot, but credit for trying.
Next up were Magic Christian on the main stage, while none of us had heard of them they were pretty good, although a bad choice in trousers by the lead singer was the main point of discussion, they definitely drew focus away from the music. You can listen to their stuff here <–Link.
Next up on the main stage was Eddy Grant, who played an exceptional set and fitted the mood nicely as the sun came out, and we ran and got ice cream while we had the chance. We wondered about and looked at the skateboarding area as it had some people on it and we could still hear the main stage.
After that came the Goo Goo Dolls which I was really looking forward to, they played an amazing set, including all the obvious songs like Iris, Slide and Sympathy. They are really amazing live and would reccomend them to anyone. They all had perfectly sensible trousers on too. Towards the end of the set the clouds came in.
After they finished their set and we were waiting for the next act on the main stage we wondered over to see Amy Studt on the o2 in Association (blah) stage, I bought her first single “Just A Little Girl” when I was about 12 so I was interested to see what she was playing now. She definitely has the sound of someone who is angry with a lot of people and found a keyboard before she could find an axe. But it was a decent sound and quite catchy, I found myself whistling it that night.
Before she finished her set we went back to the main stage to see Powderfinger, at what point the Australian-to-Londoners ratio must have been about 4-1, as an Australian flag was raised on crutches somewhere near the front, it was hard to get anywhere near the stage so we settled for somewhere near the middle.
They played a great set including things like Lost and Running, Head up in the Clouds and Nobody Sees. As they played the rain came down (bloody Australians) and the umbrellas went up so it was hard to see or get pictures, but I did what I could.
Towards the end of the set the sun came out and everyone was happy! But no time for that, Bowling for Soup are about to go on!
Why Bowling for Soup were not on the main stage I have no idea, they were shoved inside a tent, which would be my major complaint with the whole thing, they definitely warranted a spot on the main stage, but we were probably a lot closer to them than we would have been if they were on the main stage, so I shouldn’t complain.
To sum it up in a word they were fricking phenomenal, okay that was two words, but they’re too awesome to be summed up in a word. They played all the greats, Almost, Girl All the Bad Guys Want, 1985, High School Never Ends, and they were absolutely hilarious. I expected nothing less having seen clips of them live, if you get a chance to see them, do it, you won’t regret it.
At one point Jaret’s guitar stopped working, and as he plays the into to most of the songs they took a time out and posed for photos while they fixed it.
After that we went and caught the end of Ben Harpers main set on the main stage which was very good, and we then fought our way to the front (ish) to wait for Counting Crows. Being the last act on they had an extra long set at something like an hour and a half.
While they played an amazing set I didn’t really feel they warranted an hour and a half OR the last set, I’m a big fan of Counting Crows, but I think Goo Goo Dolls or even Bowling for Soup would have done more with it.
Anyway, with the end of that set (or slightly before) we left and poured into Hyde Park Corner tube station along with a few thousand other people. Man this is long. In conclusion a good event well worth the ticket money, many thanks to o2!
August 13, 2008
Random
No Comments
When confronted on your doorstep by an elderly lady, who you know to be one of your next door neighbours, shouting “The gazebo thing has been flying about the garden and now its hanging off the house by the satellite dish and I’m worried it will break all your windows!” all in one breath, you must ask yourself one question.
“Dreaming, not dreaming, dreaming, not dreaming. Not dreaming, damn, lets go.”
I have been saying for weeks that next doors gazebo will eventually get airborne and kill us all, when it eventually does of course, her whole family aren’t in the house and my whole family aren’t in the house, leaving me and her the job of dealing with it.
I say we, I attempted to handle it single handedly to start with, I ran into the back garden and began to gently try and loop it off the satellite dish so as not to damage it, and had little luck, despite being airborne it had a metal frame and was quite heavy.
What sprang to mind when I thought of damaging the satelite was them calling injuryLawyers4u and ending up on one of their adverts.
“When our gazebo flew away the evil boy next door added insult to injury by pulling on it until it brought down our satellite dish and crushed my mother to death. We got four thousand pounds.” I haven’t got four thousand pounds, so I figured I better be gentle with the thing.
I then unlocked the gate and let the old lady who had been watching my feeble attempts in. Who responded with an immediate “Just pull it! *yank*” which seemed to start working, and I decided if she crushed herself to death they wouldn’t get any money and I could go back to bed, so I started helping.
She knocked over our old hamster cage which was still full of sawdust and resting gently on the barbeque (as is traditional in our culture, obviously) and thought she’d assassinated our rabbit or something, not that we have a rabbit, and if we did we wouldn’t keep it on the barbeque, thats where the dead hamster cages go, THINK WOMAN THINK.
Anyway, we eventually got it onto our patio and covered it in bricks, so it wouldn’t fly away again, and decided to wait for further assistance before trying to move it again. While I’m sure it was wonderfully easy to move about when it was grounded, now its flapping about in the wind and broken its actually quite a handful.
I demand my medal at once!
P.S. As far as festival-blogs go I will try to get them done before the end of August, lotsa luff.
