Glastonbury - review from my bedroom

Unlike last year, I did not spend 5 days scrubbing vegan risotto from industrial-sized pans in exchqange for the privilege of attending Glastonbury festival. Since acquiring my flashy new Camberwell mid-terrace, I discovered that bills and rent and a whole host of other boring yet neccessary demands on my finances required me to stay put and sell bicycles.

I'm sure the purists among us will shout that not 'being there' will affect my musical judgements of the bands (i.e. Not being completely off my nut when Lady Gaga sang Love Game might explain why I didn't enjoy it quite as much as some of the audience). As a result, I'll keep my critique brief.

Dizzee Rascal
Mind-blowing, as I expected. The grimey basslines coming from my subwoofer were phenomenal, and his sampling of Dirty Cash (Money Talks by The Adventures of Stevie V was inspiration itself. He really knows how to pull out a break. Having the rest of his crew visible and not banished to side-stage darkness was also really nice to see - which brings me nicely onto...



Lady Gaga

Terrible. Silly dancers, poor vocal performance and general musicianship (was she actually *playing* that ridiculously ornate keyboard?). I can only really give her credit for her effort with the costumes.

Franz Ferdinand
Having seen these guys live before shortly after the release of You Could Have It So Much Better, I was looking forward to seeing how they'd moved on. The band performed with a massive energy throughout the 2-hour set, whipping the audience into a frenzy even with their newer and less familiar songs. Their musical tightness was also blindingly impressive. They took some time out of their hit-busting for some wickedly slow build-up jams. My favourite was definitely the collective drumkit battering by the four - the energy between them all was simply intense. 3 albums in, these guys are still original, still interesting, and, most importantly, Kopranos is still hot.



By contrast, I've just finished watching...

Blur
By about 16 I had migrated from being a solid Oasis girl to a Blur bitch - they certainly have the musical edge over their Mancunian rivals if they fail at the attitude. I was sceptical about their reformation, hence dismissing the opportunity to pay £25 for the privilege of seeing them at my student union. Judging from what I've seen tonight, it seems that this scepticism is not wholly unfounded. Whilst they bashed out the crowd-pleasers well enough, there seemed to be a distinct lacking of energy. Where Franz Ferdinand felt electric, Blur simply felt regurgitated and about as inspiring as a bunch of middle-aged men dressed as Shoreditch trendies sounds.

The current trend for reforming has left one member of the Jackson 5 dead, a previously iconic indie band broken into cringey pieces of their former self and a bunch of Essex ravers postively on fire.

Strawberry Fair 2009

Strawberry Fair, or, as I have now re-christened it, Skankberry Fair, is not without reputation. For one day a year, in an otherwise quaint and tourist-infested university town, the best nutters the South have to offer congregate, get inebriated with their substance of choice and have a hell of a good time. The following 364.25 days are spent persuading The Friends of the Common and various tight-lipped town authorities to do it again. Last year, heavy police presence and formidable sunshine resulted in an accumulation of hot and bothered drunks, and with the absence of the reggae tent in an attempt to cut down on illegal drug use, there was nowhere for them to let off steam. Although I’ve been to plenty of great Strawberry Fairs in the past, I was not without my reservations for what this year might hold.

On Friday night I started off the weekend with the Strawberry Fair pre-party – Vibronics @ Funky Fun House . Now, I’ve been to some venues in my time, but this one was quite something. The place is normally one of those indoor adventure centres where children go for their birthdays to run around madly for 2 hours whilst tanked on sugar. However, removal of most of the nets and platforms left us with a primary coloured skank den furnished with crash mats. The sound system was loud and bassy and had the punters truly skanking out in this wickedly dark venue. To my discomfort, the DJs did have an annoying habit of cutting the track just as everyone was really getting their back into it. MC-ing has its place and can really make a tune feel personal, but it’s advisable to keep the music going if you want to keep the dancers going! This technique seemed to drive people off a little, and by about 2am we were ready to retreat back home to our own record collection with our ears ringing.

I rolled into to Strawberry Fair at around 2pm the next day. I was first struck by how relatively un-hectic it was. Maybe it’s simply my new London attitude to things, but I was quite aware that I wasn’t struggling through crowds of silly hat-wearing, dreamcatcher wielding festival goers to quite the same extent. The shops too, I noticed, seemed far fewer and also far less likely to sell undeniably useless ‘festival tat’ or salmonella-nurturing kebabs than I remember. We settled down first at the South Stage where we caught 10 Ton tongue and Beverly Kills – two young and talented rock groups, the former having a more folky edge whilst the later was much more in the Riot Grrl scene. I’ve only just realised that I no longer identify myself as a fellow pier of the ‘young and talented’. Aged 19, I seemed to have moved from the realms adolescent fandom to that of a more mature appreciation. Regardless, both bands were tight and full of energy and, most importantly, just the right kind of hard-but-happy (not happy hardcore, crucially) vibe needed for the festival. Woggle the mash-up DJ was also pretty impressive. In particular, I remember a great mix of Gossip’s ‘Standing in the Way of Control’ with Baby D’s ‘Let me be your fantasy’ well as dropping some War of the Worlds samples across some hip-hop tracks in a way that reminded me of Def Cut and Life on Other Planets?.

We were then informed on good authority that the dub tent was where it was truly at, which was confirmed on our arrival. I regrettably missed Thudbox who apparently are one of the best samba bands my dad has ever seen, which is saying a lot. Through a haze of smoke came some deep mambo and salsa tunes, followed by reggae and hard bassy dub. The Uprizing Crew , who I had hoped to see at the after-party that evening has it not been shut down, pulled off a really good set and the tent was packed out with various shades of dancing. The good vibes from the band and crowd were enough to diffuse any potentially hairy situations and my feet did not stop moving until the sun set.



Boomslang that night was my ‘plan B’ after being denied a second night at Funky Fun House for the afterparty. If I thought I had tinnitus before going to The Junction, I definitely have it now. Boomslang was LOUD. We arrived to some funky house music in the main room, went upstairs to discover a relatively empty room of slightly-less funky house music, whereupon we made a hasty return. Headlining was Annie Mac, of Radio 1 fame, and boy did she drop some great records! The Strawberry Fair crowd were still lively, and that rare thing happened where people will happily dance with you without a) giving you odd looks b) trying to molest you. Moving from House to Dubstep to Salsa and back again, I was absorbed. Unlike the previous night, the songs followed each other flawlessly. Annie is a great DJ to watch, which can’t be said for a lot of those destined behind the microphone (mentioning no names... Chris Moyles). Zinc followed Annie and gave a good, although not quite as exciting, set that I was reluctant to have to depart from as early as I did. After this year’s Strawberry experience, I wasn’t quite ready to have to wait a whole year to repeat it.

STILL - THE LEXINGTON - 02/06/2009

After a sweltering day selling bikes and successfully trying to purchase goldfish in Camden town, I was all but ready to embrace the cool musical offerings the Lexington had to offer as part of its new music night – STILL.

Despite being billed as headliners, Spindle & Wit - up-and-coming London post-folk outfit – were unaccountably on first. They were fresh and vibrant with their tightness only occasionally compromised by some slightly dodgy vocal harmonies, thought that was probably more the fault of the soundman than anything else. With a banjo and violin making up 2 of the instruments in this rather young and attractive 5-piece, the band gave an original and passionate performance. Their sound is very much part of the current London music scene – some say the credit crunch, global warming or even the Irish are to blame for resurgence of folk music amongst the middle class yoof of Britain.Jeremy Warmsley,Kill It Kid and the more mainstream likes of Arcade Fire or even Nick Cave are all solid examples of this return to the grassroots approach, complete with rolled-up shirt sleeves and tight –belted trousers. It was early, but the little red room in Angel’s trendiest whiskey bar was busy and not without its fair share of leg wobbles and head nods. Spindle and Wit’s set was teasingly short but left everyone in anticipation of what the rest of the night might bring.

The next act on, however, were so mellow that it undid all the excitement whipped up so well by the previous act.Snowbird, a young American vocalist and her slightly older and balder pianist/drum machine operator were no doubt talented (he performed the entire set with eyes closed and expressions of ecstasy flashing across his face – now that’s multi-tasking!), but seemed much more suited as an opening act rather than sitting awkwardly in the middle of the bill. Stephanie’s voice was hypnotic with resonances of Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos nestled within her sweet warbling sound. Simon (of former Cocteau twins fame) and his entrancing keyboard melodies complimented her sound nicely. She was so good that I was willing to overlook the often nauseating lyrics, but dear god THAT DRUM MACHINE. Viewing the drum machine as one of my natural enemies as I do anyway, the soul-less hissing ringing from Simon’s Macbook sat smugly atop his Yamaha was enough to send the most sympathetic muso loopy (excuse the pun). Fortunately the duo performed half the set unaccompanied, and was all the better for it.

Last to grace the stage were Danny and the Champions of the World. I had assumed that the name was some sort of ironic illusion to the Roald Dahl classic, but as the performance wore on, it seemed to reflect their attitude quite accurately. Lashings of Lute and Flute combined with a charismatic Johnny Cash-type as front-man made the band interesting - and MY LORD could the drummer thwack out a tasty beat. For the first song or two this seemed to work for them quite well. However, the mass amalgamation of egos resulted in all of Danny’s songs finishing in a drawn out, overplayed, sped up then slowed down orgy of sound. The group often made a circle as they furiously tried to outplay each other - in much the same way a public school boy takes part in the ‘soggy biscuit game’ and just as unpleasant to watch. The band played faster and more frantically as the room grew frostier. The air conditioning in there seemed to be working rather too well, it seemed, and unfortunately turned what started off as a really exciting night into something that left me fairly cold.