If you see mediocre bands do mediocre shows for long enough it's easy to fall down that horribly slippery slope of thinking that maybe your ears don't work anymore. Thank God for Robots In Disguise, who have just broken into our head and installed a whole new stereo. In spite of chronic and genuine sound problems (yes Larrikin Love, we're looking at you) they turned out a show that was messy, thrilling and the best thing we've seen at a festival all year. Fans in the front row let of ribbon streamers over the band, who stuck mics in people's faces to spell out "girls", and then topped it off by falling over and tussling on the floor. They leant right into the crowd, at one point clambering over onto the tent's support table and dancing like all hell was away. They even got The Mighty Boosh's Noel Fielding in on bass for a song. It was utterly glorious. After endless "performances" where band play, crowd clap, repeat as necessary, it was a total adrenalin rush to be right in the middle of something that reminds you why music is wonderful. Sod Jamiroquai, his stupid ego and horrid songs, we're leaving Lovebox feeling like we've just mainlined joy. Cheers girls.
7.15pm. We're sprawled half way between the main stage and the electro tent which means we're listening to reggae supremo Jimmy Cliff and electrockers White Rose Movement at the same time. It sounds like a mash up done by your least talented DJ mate. FYI: The weirdest thing WRM have ever seen at a festival is a woman masturbating with a piece of pizza at Glastonbury. They reckon it was an American Hot. Ouch... Tabloid cash cow Calum Best has just walked past with numerous "lovelies" (he is very, very orange in real life) and Martin Fowler doesn't seem to have moved for the last three hours. Somewhat suprisingly given where we are, we've only been offered drugs three times the whole weekend. Maybe the dealers are on holiday.
Secretly, we wanted to see The Feeling do 'Fill My Little World' on the main stage because it fills us with joy, but they're playing 'Sewn' which definitely doesn't so we head over to the Kill All Hippies tent for The Holloways. We're very nearly stolen away by a man playing a bossa nova version of 'Teenage Dirtbag' in the Rumpleteaser. Damn can that song swing. The Holloways are very endearing to watch, and clearly overjoyed by what they're doing, so it's a shame that it's the same indie/ska that every other young London four-piece have been doing for the last two years. Time to rootle in the influences barrel again wethinks.
A Burlesque stage has sprouted since yesterday which explains why there's a lady divesting herself of her ribbons at four in the afternoon. Of course! It's the Whoopee Club! One of her nipple tassles goes missing so some enterprising hand movements are employed until she goes "Oh f*** it" and strikes a finishing pose. Nice one miss. She's then rewarded with a cheque from a gringo with a Devonshire accent, before a bunch of pirates come on and start going "Aaaar!" Today is already ten times more fun than yesterday. I blame the models.
Aloud's sleb spotting's going quite well today: wossname who plays Martin in Eastenders chainsmoking in the VIP area, Gogol Bordello looking hot outside the Rumpelteaser tent, and Lorraine. Ole asked if we'd met before. We hadn't, but he's a bit lovely so we would have remembered. The Rumpleteaser tent makes us even more excited as there's an aerial display on and if we didn't have chronic vertigo and absolutely no gymnastic ability, we'd have run away to join the circus years ago. As it is, we're quite happy to get neckache watching these two at it.
"We thought we'd write a song about love. Because no one's ever done that."
Insofar as a dance festival can have a rock day, this is it. We were rather expecting the attractiveness of the visitors to go down as a result after yesterday's model fest, but no. There's lots of tanned youth tapping their feet to Guillemots and their ker-azee folkish tunes. Ooh, someone's doing what looks like the Charleston to our left. That's either very brave or very foolish depending on how hot you are. For those of you who've been asleep for the last week, Guillemots have been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Bad luck for them that experimental weirdness won last year, our money's on Sway.
It's bright and early (well, ish) and Vicky Park is already covered in bodies sprawled over the grass. We say grass, but last night's revels crushed a load of it so it's more desert straw than anything else. Synth pop kings Lorraine are playing their biggest gig to date - not that you'd know, like Brian Molko at his best their singer (the rather gorgeously named Oleowns) the stage. Not so much a passing nod to the 80s as a big drunken snog, their songs are huge chunks of wistfulness and Lost Boys style promise. What it must have been to see this done in Barfly...
Jim Noir has cancelled apparently. Oh well. Back to Groove Armada, who have obviously sensed our damp curmudgeonliness as they've amped up the rock. It's all a bit angry, but in a "Hey! This is OUR festival! Brilliant!" sort of way. We're going to attempt dancing now, so thank you for reading and see you tomorrow for day two.
Even as the organisers of this shindig, Groove Armada must be at least slightly fazed by the thousands of people currently swaying along to 'At The River', not all of whom have taken vast amounts of pills. With an entire band jammed onto the stage, it knocks X-Press 2's disc spinning efforts into a cocked hat. Our holiday mood rapidly dissipates with the approach of yet more rain, so we're going to head off to the Lost and Sound tarpaulin stage to watch Jim Noir instead.
We thought Tiny Dancers had cornered the market on elaborate stage decoration but that was before we saw Flipron's drum kit. Dripping with flashing fairy lights and hula flowers it looks like it's escaped from a Brighton old folks home, which is also pretty much as close as you'll get to summing up Flipron's sound. Acidly clever lyrics, accordions, bells and rollicking weirdness from every vintage you can imagine. Oh good, they're about to do 'Skeletons on Holiday'. If you have somehow neglected to fit their album '38 Minutes...' in your record collection, you'll probably have missed this particular Hawaiian-tinged instrumental. You're a fool. Get on CDwow and fix this immediately.
The Aerosolics crew, whose own festival had to be cancelled earlier this year, have unleashed their skills over specially set up billboards and even a bus. Some of it is mindblowing, some of it looks like Vauxhall Bridge. There are whole worlds being painted around us - screw the art snobs, this is a hell of a lot better than the Tate Modern.
We're watching some Proper dance music, albeit from a very safe distance because it's horrible. Remember X-Press 2? No? Remember that godawful 'Lazy' song from a few years back? There we go. Dance music's evolved so much in the last six years - German DJs realising there's more to life than trance for example - that you've got to ask why house still exists. It's so horribly, awfully bland. Oh look, X-Press 2 have taken the hint and are now playing something vaguely electroclash. It's still dull. Oh well.
Scissor Sisters for those who can't be bothered to dress up
Having tried to find Jamie Lidell and only found some bloke who was neither him nor the previous set, Gilles Peterson, we get our electro hat on and dance like bandits to Hot Chip at the main stage. They satisfy both our rock and electro needs, and, more importantly, the guitarist's t-shirt is almost the same shade of pink as ours. Everyone is grinding and stomping themselves into a stupour. It's ace.
It took us about forty minutes and the asking of many stewards to find the VIP area. One said it was next to a green container which a, wasn't true and b, made us feel like we were looking for a Tupperware party. Well, you're not missing out on much, there's some Rahs playing croquet and a load of folk sitting around listening to vague hip-hop. Where are the famous people? Oh, they'll be in production. Damn.
Some bloke in a dress has just done a dodgy impression of the Stanton to introduce her onstage. Whether or not this filled her with joy is subject to discussion, but she's bringing "it" (whatever the hell it is) in droves. A diva in jeans. We rather love that. "I would rather be an old man's sweetheart, than to be a young man's fool," she purrs. Candi Stanton ladies and gentlemen, a woman who can make gerontophilia sound appealing.
We thought we'd come across some buskers crouching under a tarpaulin, but no: it's the Lost and Sound stage. Jim Noir's playing this later. It's a bit small. Maybe XBox and Vice magazine ran out of cash? Or maybe they're just a bit stingy.
"we've brought the Mexican weather with us!" giggles Gabriela. We wish. The rain's let up now at least but as we've just forked out twelve quid for an umbrella we're half hoping to get our money's worth. The park's decked out like a European funfair, lots of flags and people in overly optimistic clothing. Slashmusic spotted a bloke dressed as a turd earlier. You have to ask how he thought that was ever a good idea.
With a name like that, arty photos are an inevitability
Limbering up for the joys of Lovebox this weekend, we decided to plump for the tatime in Cwmderi sounds of ex-Gorky's frontman, Euros Childs. The man is a genius. His songs are not only wonderful - varying from absolute heartbreak to all-out foot stomping indie - but he's got a good way with an anecdote. We took along one of our grumpiest muso mates, last known non-schadenfreude smile circa 2001, and he laughed and everything. No higher praise there. Check out Euros Child's MySpace page at http://www.myspace.com/euroschilds.
QUESTIVALS! Alex Zane talks Reading, underage drinking and bad fingers20 Jul 2006
Oh he is a sweetie. Very white eyeballs bizarrely - the boy must sleep like the dead.
Fresh from dancing around with OAPs and skiving office workers, and hosting the Volvic Lunchbox secret gig before the full-length Weekender takes place this weekend, XFM's lovely Alex Zane answers the festival-related words we throw at him. And some that weren't.
Best? “The best one was probably my very first festival, Reading 1995. I was just 16 and it was phenomenal. I did the whole camping experience because now obviously people give me passes to go backstage where everything’s fresh and clean and you don’t get dirty, and the toilets don’t get pushed over by randoms without their shirts on going, (shrieks) ‘PUSH OVER THE PORTALOOS!’ It’s slightly safer, but I don’t think I’m enjoying that real festival experience that I had at Reading ’95. It was the summer where we all loved White Zombie, so we were all wandering around in White Zombie t-shirts being crazy 16-year-olds.”
Worst? “The Heineken Music Festival in Roundhay Park. It was free and it wasn’t bad because the festival was bad – Pop Will Eat Itself were playing and I loved PWEI in that period, I still do actually – but I was about 14, and not being a proper drinker at 14 I thought ‘Wow! It’s a festival and everyone’s drinking beer, so I’ll drink beer! Wow, I can see the beer again, coming out of me!’ I was horribly drunk. A girl I fancied was there, and she quite fancied me and then I was sick. We all went back to my house round the corner and shaved a friend’s eyebrow off. He went just crazy and threw loads of cups at the wall. So overall, while the festival itself was great, the lasting memory is of me being sick and having a huge man without an eyebrow bellowing at us. He deserved it.”
Weirdest? “It’s a film festival so I don’t know whether that counts, but I was at the Cannes film festival and there was a man standing in the middle of the street with two cats on his shoulder. I didn’t think you could train a cat, cats are too arrogant to be trained, so how he’d done it – whether it was through some telepathic link with the feline community perhaps – these cats sat on his shoulder and pawed the air in some kind of cat dance. He hummed, it was a cross between humming and purring, and the cats kind of danced in time. It was just phenomenal.”
Essentials? “(Mock smug) Well! Once you’re on TV, you don’t need to bring toilet paper anymore. People throw toilet paper at you, too much toilet paper. I’d say the thing to take is a hat. If it’s your own hat, that you’ve gone ‘I look good in this hat’ with, then you’re never tempted to get to a festival and go ‘Wow!’ Those jesters hats actually look quite good. I might just get one of those.’ It’s never a good look, so take a hat so that you’re never tempted to buy a hat that you’ll look back on and go, ‘I really did look like a twat.’”
Band? “Sex?! (Um, set actually) Ooh, I’ve just remembered something at Reading ’95. I’ve never pulled at a festival – I don’t think I’ve ever pulled at a festival since – but this girl invited me back to her tent. I was 16 and just thought ‘Brilliant!’ but then she did something that made me leave the situation. This was the last day of Reading ’95, I’m covered in filth, my nails are black and she says ‘Let me show you this thing.’ And she puts her finger in my mouth and I felt physically sick and had to run away. It was like, ‘You put it in your mouth and you don’t know where it’s been! I wouldn’t put it in my mouth and you’ve put it in yours and you think it’s sexy.’”
Er, band? “I think Primal Scream are always great at festivals. He’s just crazy! Bobbie Gillespie is just brilliant on stage.”
Glockenspiel, trumpet, triangle, maracas, sax...it's like someone covered themselves in glue and ran through the Early Learning Centre. Whiskycats certainly cheers up the dancing old boy, who having just bent our ear for five minutes about how music today doesn't amount to anything and it was so much better back in 1952 when he was teaching dance fresh off the boat from Malta. Whiskycats make lots of funked up noise, but once again, the OAPs entirely steal the show by inventing ever more marvellous ways of doing the dance. The old boy in blue gets Aloud Festivals up to do a bit of two-step with him. Mercifully this was not caught on camera. That man can move.
Alex Zane, aged 27. Sidney soon wins a prize for his awesome contribution to the dance floor - a crate of Volvic. To give him his due, he lifts it up in proper wrestling fashion - not bad considering it's got to weight a bit.
Camden's Opera House were handpicked by Groove Armada's Tom Findlay to play today, so it's a bit of a shame that their moment of glory is being totally upstaged by the OAPs taking to the floor like they're on drugs. Opera House are a bit meh so that's not so bothersome for the rest of us, plus it does give you the awesome sight of the elderly swing-dancing to rock.
He's got the moves. Oh yes. Turning up the VOLcanicity according to Volvic's slogan. Hmmm. We do like puns but that one makes us think too much of Star Trek.
Alexander M: "It's one of the biggest deckchair gigs we've ever done."
There's a man with a guitar (you can see him) and a man with a double bass (who you can't. But we can.) and they're playing something, possibly jazz, probably not because there's a lap top which Alexander M keeps fiddling with. Sorry, we've just become monumentally distracted by the sight of all the crotchety OAPs from a moment ago getting up and dancing. One of them, an old boy in a blue shirt, is currently weaving his way from one side of the crowd to the other, doing what seems to be a two-step. It is immense.
Alexander's Festival Hall saying ruefully, "You should never go to the Royal Festival Hall on a first date unless you want to start an electronic band."
We love secret things, especially when the secret things in question give us an excuse to go and spend lunch in the sunshine instead of at our computer. Revving up for the Volvic Lovebox Weekender this weekend, Volvic have organised a little event in the gardens next to Embankment Tube station called the Volvic Lunchbox. Aha! Clever. Anyway, you could only find out where it was by clicking your heels together three times or something, but judging by the motley crew of OAPs, lunchtime office workers, tourists and students gathered around the bandstand, it didn't really matter because people were there anyway. We really like free stuff as well, and that they're giving out loads of bottles of that fruity water stuff they do which is delicious. Maybe if we say "Volvic's fruity water stuff is delicious and officially sanctioned by Aloud Festivals" they'll send us a crate which would be very nice. Ooh look, Alex Zane's hosting, in a smart waistcoat. Well done him.
The 12-hour K Festival in the heart of Newquay is but eight days away, and with Goldie Lookin' Chain (Hurray!) and Athlete (er, oh) both making their first festival appearances of the summer it should be a grand day out. Unless you've thought it was something to do with Kerrang! and turned up expecting Panic! At The Disco - you will be sorely disappointed and have wasted your eyeliner.
Beta Band alumni The Aliens will be playing in the afternoon on July 28, with the warm-ish tipped The Upper Room alongside John Butler Trio, Meeky Rosie, Jackson Analogue, The Fall Out Trust, Scott Matthews and The Wonderfuls. There will be three Cornish bands too, which is nice, these being The Noel Pryor Band, The Reels and Joe Francis & The Ammunition.
Other festival treats include FMX bike jumping displays, robot shows and the Honda Chill Out Dome. It's all sponsored by Budweiser too, so expect a lot of grinning people proferring bottles.
Tickets cost £29.50, check out the official site for more details.
Green Man sells out, V's fourth stage unveiled, and flower power hits Global Gathering19 Jul 2006
- Sorry if you wanted to go a-hippying this year: you can't. The Green Man Festival has sold every one of its 6000 tickets, which organisers It's Jo and Danny celebrated by saying "Yeeha!" very enthusiastically.
- The line-up for the Virgin Mobile Social Tent at this year's V festival has been announced and it's a cracker.
The Cooper Temple Clause, Sandi Thom, The Dears, Mew, My Morning Jacket, The Concretes, Regina Spektor, BellX1, Jamie T, Crimera, Art Brut, Ocean Size, Captain, The Young Knifes, Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family, Jim Noir, The Upper Room, Lorraine, James Morrison, Paolo Nutini, Butch Walker, Seth Lakeman, The Grates, Director, Milk Teeth, and Love Bites will all play the stage, and hurray! It'll turn into an indie disco afterwards.
Following in O2's footsteps at Wireless, there will be a texting element for Virgin customers, who will have the chance to win backstage access to the festival.
- Global Gathering organisers have decided to share the love with festival-goers by showering them with flowers - literally. The Dutch company Flower Rain will unleash three drops over the site from a helicopter 200m up, sending around 100,000 chrysanthemums and anemones over the festival to try and make everyone feel happy.
We're back! We're also covered in mosquito bites, dust, sunburn, hungover and simmering with hatred towards the One railway network for providing the world's crappest timetable. We're uploading all the pictures and posts that fell prey to the Aloud phone's comatose state - a very pretty man at the T Mobile tent told us it was something to do with GPRS and connectivity, but we were really just staring at his eyes so didn't pay much attention. Anyway, there's a bunch of great stuff to come, so go and amuse yourselves for a bit and we'll get typing. Oh, join our MySpazz in the meantime.
