The Streets

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V Festival (Staffordshire) 2005

Saturday 20th to Sunday 21st August 2005
Weston Park, Staffordshire, TF11 8LE, England MAP
£110 w/e (with camping) SOLD OUT, £90 w/e (no camping), £52.50 day

Music has always been used as a channel for commentary about modern day culture and the society we live in. The Streets are the epitome of chavdom. Singing songs about being on the dole, breaking up with you kappa-slapper girlfriend and eating fast food outside train stations. For a reason unknown to me this apparently makes Mike Skinner one of the most talented and lyrically gifted songwriters this country has ever had to offer. If you were on the verge of losing all faith in the UK music industry then this really should be the last nail in the coffin.

Keeping true to his yobbish image Skinner parades around the stage occasionally asking the crowd to put their shoes in the air and then hop around to his unlistenable rap, backed up by cheesy guitar and hip hop beats that make you want to pull your eyes out of their sockets and repeatedly stamp up and down on them.

Skinner brings on various inflatable objects; a large inflatable brandy bottle that allegedly cost a grand, a large inflatable packet of weed and a large inflatable lighter that the sound engineer has to hold up because it’s unable to stand on its own accord.

It would have been marginally better if you could hear what the band were saying, half the time Skinner’s voice was inaudible and if there are genius undertones to his lyrics then you didn’t stand much hope of hearing them.

Skinner paid tribute to the days headliners Oasis by performing the opening bars of ‘Don’t look back in anger’ over ‘Dry your eyes out’. Twice Skinner decided to sing the chorus from the Kaiser Chief’s latest re-release ‘I predict a riot’, which caused the whole Staffordshire crowd to break out in song. This begs the question: Why weren’t The Kaiser Chiefs playing on the main stage?