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.