Saturday, June 16, 2007

Party in the park

The Wireless festival, of which I now count myself a regular having attended Depeche Mode last year, New Order the year before and Faithless this year, delights and disgusts me in equal measure. Whilst the principle spirit of any festival is achieving some kind of 'connection' at Glastonbury its with your own inner spirit or something, at Wireless it's with your mobile phone brand.

Apart from the opportunity to bond with your O2 phone provider by texting for a "VIP" pass to their tent thing. You can walk along neat concreted pathways between various heavily sponsored areas, rather than through a bog of your own swill. Even the burgers are nice, the beer queue short and Spanx had a convenient and safe locker to store his rucksack. It is all very wrong.

But, it's convenient, it's within 30 minutes of all main stations out of town and it finishes at a reasonable time. Its like a lady choosing to discard her foxy lingerie for a pair of three pack big knickers because they're comfortable. You can't argue with the logic.

If Faithless were a football team, you'd say that in Maxi Jazz you've got a man up front who will guarantee you goals. They came on and snatched an early goal with 'Can't Get No Sleep', just before half time 'God Is A DJ' ensured victory. For most of the second half they defended deep and in numbers without really pressing their advantage home. In the final minute they broke away to slot home 'We Come 1'; flattering the score line a little.

I'd never seen Faithless before, but they look amazing on TV and when they're good, they're really good. But it wasn't quite the stellar experience I hoped it might be and it turns out that I don't know as many of their tunes as I thought.

Still, they've enough in their locker for you to go home happy and there's little better than pounding live music and a big crowd to get your spirits up. Even if it is Mark Ronson name dropping Amy Whinehouse and playing a series of anodyne covers.

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