Friday review

Kelis was once Matthew Williamson’s muse. So why she is now appearing on stage in front of us sporting some sort of medieval tutu-cum-panto costume is beyond me. She sings beautifully but looks completely barking. Maybe she saw Perry Farrell the day before and thought she’d give it a go. Well, it’s a show she’s putting on, so at least there’s an excuse (though it is more Cirque Du Soleil than Festival). Anyway, enough about the frocky horror. She’s an interesting act, a total mish-mash. Pop, to rock to drum and bass. A great pace for a sunny evening, with fifty per cent of the audience having a dance, but not engaging enough to stop me wandering off in search of the Gotan Project.

The Gotan Project are late. The room is getting packed. Men are faffing about on stage with wires and gadgets. An impatient crowd start clapping slowly and as if by magic, the men in white suits walk on. That’s them by the way. The men in white suits (we haven’t been committed that early in the evening). That’s the Gotan Project’s ‘thing’. A white stage. White suits. An all female string quartet in white dress standing patiently at the back of the white stage. Pale images on the white backdrop are complimentary not overshadowing or showy. Like a scene from a 60s space movie. Everyone cheers as the strings begin and the track kicks in.

They have a DJ, live strings and a live vocalist which make a perfect transition from vinyl to the live environment. An Argentinian-Parisien-Swiss combo, they throw out a faultless blend of atmospheric latin, electronica and mellow beats. This band are an ad-man’s dream. This isn’t formulaic, this is something different to everyone. As I look around the crowd, a couple are practising their salsa steps, some are canoodling, some jumping up and down and some twirling about in the space at the back.

They’re not overly engaging as performers but you immediately warm to them as they’re clearly having such fun on stage. Only one real complaint - this would be perfectly suited to a hot sunny afternoon but unfortunately we’re in a dank, dark, sweaty tent.

As the sun goes down, I’m wedged between Mark Ronson on the main stage and the 20 to 30-something London crowd showing their age by bouncing around to Here Comes Your Man and Welcome To The Jungle at the Ray Ban bar. I edge forward to get a closer look at the London-born New York man. He’s the sort of bloke that in a geeky environment would look geeky, but against a cool backdrop of giant stage and musical cohorts he looks pretty good.

Mark is rousing the crowd. He’s the cool version of a Pop Idol contestant. He takes great, well known tracks and makes them twenty times better. It’s hard to keep up with the amount of song references. There’s ‘Just’ by Radiohead, The Smith’s ‘Stop Me’ (with The Supremes’ ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ cleverly blended in). He takes a few moments between songs to slag off his US home turf then launches into ‘California’ by Phantom Planet. Inch by inch I can see him winning over the crowd. He can choose songs that we already love and take them a step further. Sometimes he can see more in a song that we ever could When a fabulous soul singer comes on stage and belts out ‘Valerie’ by The Zutons, it just confirms everything I’d thought about this song. It’s genius. And the genius goes further than I thought. I can count 10 people around me singing their hearts on who aren’t really sure why they know the song until they reach the chorus. So that’s one crowd severely warmed up and only one act to go...

Sometimes you see a band that everyone should take notes from. The band creep on one-by-one. The music slowly builds. A few minutes later Maxi Jazz saunters on stage, cool as a cucumber and a roar comes from the crowd as Faithless launch into ‘Insomnia’. Everyone is ecstatic. I’m seeing exhausted smiles on faces as though they’ve been jumping up and down for an hour or more, but we’re only 10 minutes into this show. By the time they play ‘God Is A DJ’ the whole of Hyde Park is converted. This is mass hysteria that any world religion would love to create.

I suppose at this point we should spare a thought for Damon Gough, who as Badly Drawn Boy is playing the Xfm stage. I have a vision of him sitting there on his own, playing to a handful of people who are probably wondering when Faithless are coming on stage (the next day I catch a clip of an interview with him backstage where he mentions exactly that).

Maxi Jazz has just celebrated his 50th birthday. He is an ageless creature, it has to be said. Statuesque, commanding, with incredible force and incredible calm all at once. Faithless play a totally rounded set. It’s as though we’ve never seen a band like this, and that they are the only music we will ever need to hear again. The finale is ‘We Come 1’ then suddenly they are cruelly taken away from us.

Latest Updates