V Festival - Hylands Park, Chelmsford
We were a bit late getting started for our Saturday at V so unfortunately all we heard of The Magic Numbers was the sounds of "Forever Lost" drifting across the car-park and camp site as we made our way in.
Fortunately we got positioned at the Channel 4 Stage (the second largest) in time to catch most of The Cardigans set. Mostly familair with this Swedish combo from their pop-orientated material - I was suprised at how diverse their sound was, from pretty hard rocking to an almost country lilt at times. Highlights were the 'Gran Turismo' double of "Erase/rewind" and "My Favorite Game".
Next up on the same stage was American indie trio We Are Scientists, whose major-label debut 'With Love And Squalor' has been on high-rotation on Kim's ipod. Their stage entrance was one of the highlights of the day: the speakers blasting the sound of a Harley revvving louding - only to have the band members, in full racing driver helmets, peddle themselves on stage on childrens tricycles. Their set drew heavily from 'With Love and Squalor' from opener "Lousy Reputation" to highlights "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt", "It's A Hit" and set-closer "The Great Escape". Their set was also the first time I noted the strange British custom I dubbed "toasting the chorus". As the name implies - the crowd raise their drinks in toast (in the same way Americans punch the air) to particularly anthemic choruses. I ended up encountering this a lot through-out the day.
We then slipped across to the main stage to catch the last half of Keane. I've been enjoying their new album 'Under the Iron Sea' quite a bit - so it was good to hear live versions of the U2-esque single "Is It Any Wonder?" (more toasting the chorus for that one) and "Cystal Ball", plus the closing ballad "Bedshaped".
The change-over between bands on the main stage is around three-quarters of an hour, so we used the break betweek Keane and Beck to slip back to the Channel 4 stage to check-out ska-ish rockers The Ordinary Boys. Only saw a few songs from them but the bouncy "Nine to Five" sounded pretty good.
Beck's set on the main stage kicked off with marionette puppets, styled to look like every member of the band (right down to matching stage costumes and instruments), miming to the album version of "Loser" - with the band entering mid-song and finishing it live. Quickly followed by "Devil's Haircut" it was actually a hits heavy set that was very well received by the festival crowd. From last year's 'Guero' we got "Black Tambourine", "ePro" and "Girl". A few new songs from his forthcoming album 'The Information': "Cell Phone's Dead", "The Information", "1000BPM" and "Motorcade" sounded closer to older 'Mellow Gold'-style than more recent dance-orientated material. "Sex Laws", a crowd request, was played at half-pace which worked really well. A midway acoustic set had Beck playing solo versions of "Lost Cause" and "The Golden Age" while the band enjoyed some food on an onstage table - which they slowly started tapping and drumming out a rhythm on, leading Beck into "Clap Hands" and "One Foot In The Grave" to close the main set. After a pretty funny onscreen display of the puppet bands festival behaviour - including peeing in the outdoor urinals - the band returned for an uptempo encore: "1000BPM", "Where It's At" - which got the best response of his set - and closer "E-pro".
Again, with an almost hour changeover between Beck and headliners Radiohead - we nipped back to The Channel 4 stage to see some agnsty rock from The Editors with "Blood" and "Bullets". They had the members of We Are Scientists guest on backing vocals for a rivetting take on REMs "Orange Crush" that was one of the highlights of the day. Set-closer "Fingers In The Factory" was pretty tasty too.
We came back to the main stage - together with around 70,000 of my closest friends - for a squishy but impressive closing set from Radiohead. Playing a suprising number of their better known songs - including an opening "Airbag", and a wealth of songs from my favorite Radiohead album 'The Bends': "My Iron Lung", "Just", "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and "The Bends". Three new songs were also included: "Bodysnatchers", "Nude" and "All I Need". More recent material included "The National Anthem", "2+2=5", "Pyramid Song", and "Everything In Its Right Place". A set closing "Creep" brought the first day of V, and our festival experience - to a fitting singalong finale.
Fortunately we got positioned at the Channel 4 Stage (the second largest) in time to catch most of The Cardigans set. Mostly familair with this Swedish combo from their pop-orientated material - I was suprised at how diverse their sound was, from pretty hard rocking to an almost country lilt at times. Highlights were the 'Gran Turismo' double of "Erase/rewind" and "My Favorite Game".
Next up on the same stage was American indie trio We Are Scientists, whose major-label debut 'With Love And Squalor' has been on high-rotation on Kim's ipod. Their stage entrance was one of the highlights of the day: the speakers blasting the sound of a Harley revvving louding - only to have the band members, in full racing driver helmets, peddle themselves on stage on childrens tricycles. Their set drew heavily from 'With Love and Squalor' from opener "Lousy Reputation" to highlights "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt", "It's A Hit" and set-closer "The Great Escape". Their set was also the first time I noted the strange British custom I dubbed "toasting the chorus". As the name implies - the crowd raise their drinks in toast (in the same way Americans punch the air) to particularly anthemic choruses. I ended up encountering this a lot through-out the day.
We then slipped across to the main stage to catch the last half of Keane. I've been enjoying their new album 'Under the Iron Sea' quite a bit - so it was good to hear live versions of the U2-esque single "Is It Any Wonder?" (more toasting the chorus for that one) and "Cystal Ball", plus the closing ballad "Bedshaped".
The change-over between bands on the main stage is around three-quarters of an hour, so we used the break betweek Keane and Beck to slip back to the Channel 4 stage to check-out ska-ish rockers The Ordinary Boys. Only saw a few songs from them but the bouncy "Nine to Five" sounded pretty good.
Beck's set on the main stage kicked off with marionette puppets, styled to look like every member of the band (right down to matching stage costumes and instruments), miming to the album version of "Loser" - with the band entering mid-song and finishing it live. Quickly followed by "Devil's Haircut" it was actually a hits heavy set that was very well received by the festival crowd. From last year's 'Guero' we got "Black Tambourine", "ePro" and "Girl". A few new songs from his forthcoming album 'The Information': "Cell Phone's Dead", "The Information", "1000BPM" and "Motorcade" sounded closer to older 'Mellow Gold'-style than more recent dance-orientated material. "Sex Laws", a crowd request, was played at half-pace which worked really well. A midway acoustic set had Beck playing solo versions of "Lost Cause" and "The Golden Age" while the band enjoyed some food on an onstage table - which they slowly started tapping and drumming out a rhythm on, leading Beck into "Clap Hands" and "One Foot In The Grave" to close the main set. After a pretty funny onscreen display of the puppet bands festival behaviour - including peeing in the outdoor urinals - the band returned for an uptempo encore: "1000BPM", "Where It's At" - which got the best response of his set - and closer "E-pro".
Again, with an almost hour changeover between Beck and headliners Radiohead - we nipped back to The Channel 4 stage to see some agnsty rock from The Editors with "Blood" and "Bullets". They had the members of We Are Scientists guest on backing vocals for a rivetting take on REMs "Orange Crush" that was one of the highlights of the day. Set-closer "Fingers In The Factory" was pretty tasty too.
We came back to the main stage - together with around 70,000 of my closest friends - for a squishy but impressive closing set from Radiohead. Playing a suprising number of their better known songs - including an opening "Airbag", and a wealth of songs from my favorite Radiohead album 'The Bends': "My Iron Lung", "Just", "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and "The Bends". Three new songs were also included: "Bodysnatchers", "Nude" and "All I Need". More recent material included "The National Anthem", "2+2=5", "Pyramid Song", and "Everything In Its Right Place". A set closing "Creep" brought the first day of V, and our festival experience - to a fitting singalong finale.
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