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Isle of Wight Festival 2005

Friday 10th to Sunday 12th June 2005
Seaclose Park, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 2DN, England MAP
w/e £75 or £90 with camping, £35 day, campervans £75 - SOLD OUT

Daily capacity: 35,000

Blimey headliners! But Travis only have two albums how will they cope in filling 80 minutes? The answer becomes clear by using frontman Fran’s charm to talk to us. Now I do like bands that have some audience interaction. But Fran takes it to new heights by interacting with the crowd the other side of the fence. Suggesting they hold up torches and lighters too – they don’t.

‘Sing’ is the opening number and there’s no sound at all for the first second or two and that has to throw the band slightly. The crowd may be more subdued than last night’s Faithless gig, but most of them have been in the sun all day. The band are on sparkling form though and ‘All I Want to do is Rock’ is Fran explains the first song they ever did.

The band launch into ‘Driftwood’ and suddenly it stops dead, as Fran forgets the words. Instantly dead the band stop the moment Fran does, talk about hanging on every word and guess what it’s also eating into all that time. Fran restarts ‘Driftwood’ and manages to finish it before introducing the new keyboard player Mark who has only played with the band once before.

Next up ‘Flowers in the Rain’ and guess what Fran forgets the words, he asks the band, heck they’ve forgotten the words! What on earth can save this set? Thankfully Fran’s quick thinking prompts him to leap into the pit and ask the front row of the audience if anyone can help him remember. Having asked the audience Fran continues and so does the huge sing along.

The band thank us and disappear off stage returning a minute or so later to do an encore. Fran thanks us for putting up with them rather than Morrissey and gives us a scenario of Moz phoning him to ask him to play a tune. Fran says they agreed and breaks into ‘Every Day is Like Sunday’ even singing it in a Morrissey style, brilliant! They follow with another track before ending with ‘Rain On Me’ and it’s a perfect note to end the night on and a real crowd pleaser.