V Festival 2007 (Chelmsford)
Fri 31st Aug 07
V Festivals V Festival (Chelmsford) 2007 Saturday had remained relatively safe from this year’s prevailing elements, but by the look of the site on Sunday morning, a rain-free V Festival was a little too optimistic. It didn’t seem to deflate the V clientele too much, and a delightfully upbeat atmosphere ran its course throughout the entire weekend.
The line-up today did look fairly promising, but I spent the early part being the sole standing watcher of a Mr. David Jordan, who was an amalgamation of all the worse bits of Michael Jackson and Lenny Kravitz. He spun on his heels, twirled in circles and flamboyantly swooned across the stage, looking rather like the ‘Cat’ from Red Dwarf, and giving it his all. Nobody was really interested though, and those who were inside the tent were watching out of the corner of their eyes with mild disdain, happy to be sheltering from the rain, not so happy to be subjected to Jordan’s drivel.
I left as I heard what sounded unbearably like the opening few bars of a piano lead ballad and made a quick exit, preferring to brave the early afternoon showers in favour of Jordan’s camp soul tinged pop.
Scottish sweetheart KT Tunstall was making her appearance on the main stage, fresh from yesterday’s Staffordshire performance, and a headlining slot at Beautiful Days. Opening with her latest single, before introducing ‘Other side of the world’ with her rant about dating people from other countries, and encouraging festival goers to keep it local. She even offered her services to dump boyfriends and girlfriends for anyone that needs it should they be able to throw their mobile phones on stage.
More old hits in the form of ‘Black Horse and The Cherry Tree’, now enhanced with a kazoo and a nifty bit of slide guitar work. Tunstall then takes time to reflect that we “live in a bit of a weird world”, with people trying “to look like other people”, and proceeded with ‘Saving my face’, a note to people attempting to look like celebrities.
Her dazzling white guitar made an appearance for ‘Suddenly I see’ and she left the stage to a worthy applause.
Fellow Scot’s The Fratellis continue to draw significantly large festival crowds with their dumbed down indie-rock sing-alongs. It’s hard not to get drawn into singing along to “So…..if you’re lonely..” on ‘Whistle for the choir’, or bobbing up and down to the hammer to the head, yet strangely infectious ‘Chelsea dagger’.
It’s quite astonishing when you realise just how many hits that The Fratellis have had, with a seemingly endless supply of chart denters at their disposal. Still, pop perfection can be no better than the George Formby-like ‘Creeping up the backstairs’.
Inside the JJB Arena the brilliant Willy Mason was rounding off his set, backed by a full band, including a talented violinist. “I’ve got a new song, and I’ve got Oxygen” he said shortly before he left the stage, and needless to say, had he not opted for ‘Oxygen’ he would have left a disappointed crowd feeling unfulfilled.
I did my best attempt to avoid Queen thief Mika, who had even gone to the trouble of bringing a larger than life inflatable ‘Big Girl’ on stage, to accompany the flesh and blood (more flesh than blood) big girl he had dancing around with him.
James did little to inspire me, and I am starting to feel that these 90’s revival acts are wearing a little thin. V have had Kula Shaker, The La’s, and The Charlatans all within the last few years, and while they all sound great on paper, the reality of the whole thing is that they just seem a little tired and unoriginal.
Bedouin Soundclash were one of the weekend’s highlight’s for me, with a touch of ska and reggae. Surprisingly they hail from Canada, and have drawn a significantly dedicated following. Their big hit, saved till the end (‘When the night feels so lonely’) gets such a welcoming reception that you can barely hear the vocals, and the crowd carry on singing it as they leave the tent. Great stuff.
As far as UK live acts go you do not get much better than Kasabian. They have the attitude of Oasis, the energy of Coldplay, the presence of Radiohead, and it’s all wrapped up in a package that takes the best bits from the early 90’s Bristol dance scene, the Manchester Britpop insurgence, and today’s current indie scenesters.
A set list of hits that included the ‘Spirit in the sky’ sounding ‘Shoot the runner’, ‘Reason is treason’, ‘Cut off’, ‘Empire’ (where the sound levels were a bit iffy), ‘Processed Beats’, ‘The Dogmen’, and quite possibly the coolest intro ever, complete with drum solo, for ‘Club Foot’.
Over on the Channel 4 stage The Manic Street Preachers were playing to a ridiculously small crowd. They are a band that have slowly dropped in popularity, but have enjoyed a slight revival thanks to a duo with the girl from The Cardigans. The songs are still classics, and ‘Ocean Spray’, ‘If you tolerate this then your children will be next’, aging hit ‘Motown Junk’, and ‘You stole the sun from my heart’ all got an airing.
Despite the fact that The Manics don’t seem to have that much to say these days, they still remain light hearted enough to throw in a cover of ‘Raindrops keep falling on my head’ in an effort to stop the showers. “You’ve been pissed on all weekend, so thanks for staying” smiles James Dean Bradfield.
The set starts to draw to a close with ‘You Love Us’, where Bradfield yells out ‘Guitar’ in a Darkness guitar solo moment. It finishes triumphantly with ‘A design for life’, which ends with Bradfield throwing his guitar down onto the floor. Much of the magic is lost, but it doesn’t stop the Manics from putting on a good show.
Closing the V Festival was the Killers, who had drawn a huge crowd of followers, and while I can’t really understand it – the excited chatter all weekend has concerned Brandon Flower’s 80’s synthesiser revivalists. Again, I find myself not really impressed by the band, but then again you can’t fault the electric atmosphere and as everyone sings along to ‘Mr. Brightside’, and it’s easy just to get taken along by the enthusiastic audience members.
My first outing to V Chelmsford, and I’m not surprised that it’s quite similar to the Staffordshire site, both in layout and setting. The weather really hasn’t been a problem, and the line-up was fairly par for the course with a mixture of good and bad acts gracing the bill. It wasn’t one of the greatest V’s, but it definitely wasn’t one of the worse either.
review by Scott Johnson
photos by Steve Fothergill / Scott Johnson
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