One of the great things about Sister Act was that it showed the old stuffy image of the Church being jazzed up by the glory of song, to the somewhat improbable extent of Disenchanted Youth coming in off the street to check it out. In the same vein, the LCGC manage to include everyone listening by the sheer force of their joy and bluesy tunes. Resplendant in white they resemble nothing so much as a flock of seagulls out on the razzle: the voices are just glorious as ever, full and harmonious, and each track is filled with the kind of conviction you just can't fake. The crowd seems to agree, people are singing along and waving their arms in the air. In fact, looking at them's a bit like an impromptu church service so we turn back to the choir. It's that kind of happiness, welcome and ballsiness that should characterise the Church, not people rattling on about how being gay or different is wrong. That is just horrid. The song's the thing.
Watching people's warm ups is incredibly fascinating if only because you so rarely get to see it. As the LCGC are enormous and numerous, they do their round of prayers and half-volume singing in a big circle in the big backstage bit of the park. They look and sound incredible. We feel a bit tingly.
The reggae has gone away! How good is that? Instead we've got Roberto Pla, who we accidentally keep on calling Roberto Plant which makes him sound like he should be wailing in much tighter trousers. There's loads of brass players and percussionists and singers making joyful rootsy music for the crowd to scream along to. It goes like this. Roberto has a chat. Crowd goes "YEEEEEAH!" Roberto recites phone book. Crowd goes "WOOOO!" Something like that anyway. They love him and his small army.
There's some reggae issuing from the main stage. Do you mind if we don't go and investigate, only we might go on a killing spree? Far better to saunter around the knitting stand where a keen group of knitting virgins are making little hats for smoothie bottles (that van's selling them), and then collapsing at the Penguin Classics stand to read something. Wellchild, Innocent's official charity for the festival, are selling raffle tickets for either a chair, or every single Penguin Classic. Er, tough choice right? Chairs are well and good, but you can get them in Ikea for a fiver and judging by the catalogue we've just been given, the vast Penguin collection will be only slightly less expensive than getting your body reconstructed in gold. Oh hang on, it's just the favourites they're letting everyone read here. Well that's perfectly fine too, although if we have to read Wide Sargasso Sea ever again we might have A-level flashbacks. Which would suck.
Having just read Jeremy Clarkson diatribing at length about his hatred of eco cars (yawn, change the record darling) it was utterly unsurprising to see a couple lurking around the ground as part of Innocent's tie-in with Greenpeace, Ecover and other envofriendly charities. But! These cars (Hondas fyi, can't remember what Clarkson thinks about those) had lovely drawings and such on them which meant that even if you were one of the millions of people the man thinks should be burned for not having a car, you could look at it and go "Well, that's rather endearing, isn't it?" We like Clarkson. But seeing as we can't afford a bicycle we'd much rather he stopped slagging us off for not getting more wheels.
Well, everyone's swigging smoothies so they must be somewhere but we'll stick to squash. Plus we can't find them. Wotevs. The watermelon is tempting us. Yum.
Unlike the Zulu bunch, the Innocent drummers have only had two weeks of practise. What they do have is numbers: loads of Innocent staff swarm onto the stage clutching big, small and non-drums and trailing singers and giant smoothies in their wake. Apple and Blackcurrant does some particularly groovy moves, check out the gallery tomorrow for evidence of that. An almighty banger of 'Respect' finishes off their set and despite the boiling heat, the audience screech blue murder. And they can't ALL have been Innocent staff... "They were really good! I'm shocked!" says compere Trevor Nelson, a bit too shocked to be flattering. Although we were as well. Nice one staff.
It's rather brilliant to wander up from Camden and move seamlessly from emotional haircuts to three men jumping around like kids on holiday. It's Mighty Zulu Nation, two ladies dancing, three men leaping and twisting and one bloke hitting the hell out of his drum. It's much the awesomeness although too bloody hot for us to show much appreciation. Ice creams, stat.
It's rather brilliant to wander up from Camden and move seamlessly from emotional haircuts to three men jumping around like kids on holiday. It's Mighty Zulu Nation, two ladies dancing, three men leaping and twisting and one bloke hitting the hell out of his drum. It's much the awesomeness although too bloody hot for us to show much appreciation. Ice creams, stat.
It's like a model agency out here. We kind of thought speed dating was for boring people but the boys and girls queueing up to flirt and watch the others are hot. Well done them.
