In Focus: AFC Wimbledon

The tale of AFC Wimbledon will be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in English football. A non-league club for much of their existence, they were elected to the Football League in 1977, beginning a rapid rise up the pyramid which culminated in their promotion to the top tier just nine years later. In 1988, Wimbledon defied the odds to lift the FA Cup, becoming the first team to have won both the FA Cup and FA Amateur Cup, but it was soon after trophy success the wheels began to fall off.

Forced out of their Plough Lane home, Wimbledon held on to their top flight status for another dozen years after their cup triumph, but finally succumbed to relegation. Following lengthy negotiations and fervent protests, the club were “relocated” 90km north to Milton Keynes and re-branded as the MK Dons. Though such refranchising moves are relatively commonplace in American sports, this move was by far the most high-profile such decision taken by the board of an English football club.

Bereft by the loss of their club, a group of Wimbledon FC supporters formed AFC Wimbledon in 2002 and the fairytale began. They started life in the Combined Counties League but shot up the non-league system and at the end of last season, AFC beat Luton Town on penalties at Wembley to return to the Football League. Saturday 6th August sees AFC take on Bristol Rovers in their first game back in the big time. All the hard work has finally paid off.

All well and good, but what has this got to do with music? Well, for a start, the team play at Kingstonian’sground, Kingsmeadow, which is sponsored by indie label Cherry Records. Plus, the club play an active part in the local community, and have been raising funds by hosting a series of gigs. Joe Rivers caught up with Jim Piddlington, the Commercial Executive of AFC Wimbledon, to talk about how music supports the club but first, how Jim saved Oxford Street’s famous 100 Club.

So, first things first, how did you save the 100 Club?

I wouldn’t say I saved the 100 Club single-handedly but I have no doubt that we had a hell of a lot to do with getting the problem out there in the media and making people aware of it.  At the beginning when we heard that it might be shutting our aim was to raise enough money to buy out the present owner. Unfortunately, as time was short we didn’t raise enough and therefore our plan was thwarted.  In the meantime I worked tirelessly getting the club in the press, on TV, on the radio and buttonholing musicians to do their bit. I managed to get Mick Jagger to do an interview for Planet Rock radio and in one of our first meetings we were deciding who we wanted to play at the club to raise awareness. I said, “Paul McCartney”, to which everyone laughed but in December last year Paul McCartney played the 100 Club as part of the ‘Save the 100 Club’ campaign.  At the end of last year Converse stepped in (pun intended) and have sponsored the club to help it through the bad time it is going through.

How did Cherry Red end up sponsoring the Kingsmeadow Stadium?

Iain McNay, the Chairman of Cherry Red, is a long time Wimbledon fan and has been involved in one way or another with AFC Wimbledon since the beginning. Cherry Red started off sponsoring the President’s Lounge at Kingsmeadow and a few years ago moved up to sponsoring the stadium.

How long have music and comedy nights been run at the stadium? 

We’ve had KingsmeadowLive running a good few years now but the comedy has been at Kingsmeadowsince the 1990s. The last few years has seen KingsmeadowLive grow as a live music venue with the likes of Neville Staple from The Specials and The Beat gracing our stage.  We have got some great gigs lined up for the rest of this year and started booking for next year too. Billy Rath of Johnny Thunders band The Heartbreakers and Steve Dior of the Delinquents are playing in their band The Broken Hearts along with The Sex Pistols Experience here later in the year so that should be a really good gig. Next year I’ve already booked The Selecter in January and Chas Hodges (of Chas and Dave) so as I said, next year is looking good already.

What’s been your favourite gig so far and who would be your ultimate fantasy booking?

My favourite gig here was Neville Staples first show, all the energy you expect and some great songs. My fantasy gig would be an all-day festival, big stage, thousands of people all crammed into the stadium with Paul Weller headlining.

A KingsmeadowLive gig which wasn’t help here but held at New Wimbledon Theatre at the end of last year was Mumford & Sons which was a bit of a coup. Marcus [Mumford] is a big AFC Wimbledon fan so they agreed to do the gig for us to help raise money for the club; it was sold out in minutes.

What gave AFC Wimbledon the idea of putting on gigs as a way to raise money?

We have a great venue that lends itself to gigs, a great PA and a capacity of 300; it was a no-brainer to use it to raise money. See some great bands and earn the club some money at the same time? Perfect.

Do you think it’s more difficult for smaller clubs to survive nowadays and how proud of you of what AFC Wimbledon have achieved?

I don’t think it will ever happen again, from trials on the common to the Football League in nine years. I don’t think it’s hard for small clubs to survive these days, I think it’s the middle sized clubs that struggle most, especially ones where the fans are dwindling. AFC Wimbledon is owned by the fans and they have the ultimate say in what happens at the club and every penny AFC Wimbledon make, from fundraising - likeKingsmeadowLive - merchandise, gate receipts, all goes back into the club to help the manager buy players, upgrade the stadium and keep AFC Wimbledon in the black. The AFC Wimbledon story is utterly amazing and what’s even more exciting, is that the story is only half finished. First half, get  back into the Football League. Second half, get back home to the Borough of Merton.

Will you be at Kingsmeadow Stadium for the Bristol Rovers game on 6th August and what are your predictions for AFC Wimbledon in the 2011-2 season?

I wouldn’t miss that game for the world! We are going to have a full house here, it’s live on Sky Sports and the world will be watching. I think we will do alright this season.  Along with most of the team from last season, we’ve made some good signings during the summer and we’ve got some youngsters coming through the youth system, so I’d like to say we will be fighting for a play-off place come the end of the season. That said, I’d be happy with a consolidating year, mid-table, and then automatic promotion next season. [Manager] Terry Brown has steered us to these heights and we all trust him to take us even higher. They say history never repeats; I’m not so sure.

To find out more information including gig listings, visit www.kingsmeadowlive.com or www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/shop/tickets. You can also follow KingsmeadowLive on Facebook and Twitter.

2000 Trees

To paraphrase – not to mention use outrageous amounts of poetic licence – we were somewhere around Gloucester on the edge of a big field when the drugs began to take hold. And by ‘drugs,’ I mean‘excitement.’ There’s something about the drive to the first day of a festival which ratchets up the anticipation, even if you do barely know who any of the acts playing are. Initially, my arm had been twisted but now I couldn’t wait to get into the place. Hell, it even looked like the rain might hold off for the whole day (reader, it didn’t). This was new and underground music festival, 2000 Trees.

For the uninitiated, 2000 Trees started life in 2007 as a local festival with a capacity of only 1,000. That has since risen to the 4,500 people who attended the 2011 shindig at Upcote Farm in Gloucestershire. In an era where the festival market has reached saturation point and several events have been forced to cancel, 2000 Trees is flourishing.

So, a noon arrival on the Friday meant we were just in time to see Young Romance on second stage, The Leaf Lounge. Young Romance have featured on the hallowed pages of No Ripcord before, when they weretwee folk duo, The Momeraths. However, they’ve now ditched the stripy clothes and chamber pop aesthetic, and have significantly beefed up their sound. There was a part of me a bit disappointed to see they’d changed so dramatically, but their set was still a solid one and a great start to a festival.

One pint of lager later (at festivals, it is perfectly acceptable to start drinking before lunch) and we were over at the main stage watching The Anomalies. Unfortunately for The Anomalies, the world has moved on from nu-metal, so their very British take on rap-rock sounded horribly dated. A swift departure away from the main stage meant a first proper wander around the festival site. 2000 Trees takes place in a fairly compact area and actually has camping in the main site. This means you’re treated to the odd sight of paths between stages being lined with rows of tents. Tripping over a rogue guy rope is a serious hazard, but it all adds to the homely feel of the festival.

While taking a tour, we had a devil-may-care moment and went to metal stage, The Cave, to see a selection of songs from Witchsorrow. The schedule noted that Witchsorrow were on a mission to reclaim the concept of doom, and I wasn’t one to argue. Outrageously technically proficient, Witchsorrow also unfortunately demonstrated every heavy metal cliché you can think of. Unfeasibly long hair, screamed unintelligible vocals and denim waistcoats covered in sewn-on patches. Fine if you like that sort of thing, but far too Spinal Tap for my tastes.

On the way back from Witchsorrow, fellow Craig and I spotted a Sleeveface tent. Never one to turn down the opportunity for a stupid photo, we scoured the boxes of vinyl in the tent before settling on an album by Mrs. Mills and Geoff Love (no, me neither). The results from that particular excursion can be viewed here.

Time for more music, and post-rock combo Cats And Cats And Cats bounded onto the stage. When the lead singer is wearing Stars and Stripes shorts, a jacket featuring seemingly every world flag and a Native American headdress from a child’s dressing-up box, you know you’re in for an entertaining set. And so it proved, with a complex mix of hard rock, pop, folk and avant-garde. Cats x3 kept the crowd guessing throughout their entertaining show, and were impossible not to love.

Less so Bath quartet Out Like a Lion, who clearly put all their energy into their gig, but were an ultimately forgettable experience. By this point, the festival lull that always arrives halfway through a long day of live music was starting to set in. A respite was needed, and a perfect panacea was provided by Sidestep DJsover in The GreenHouse. More of a platform in a campsite than a stage as such, The GreenHouse was surrounded by bales of hay, and was the ideal setting to rest weary bodies while listening to a fine selection of old skool hip-hop.

Given a second lease of life by the restoring power of breaks and beats, we soldiered on to the main stage to see Tribes. Tribes are receiving a lot of attention at the moment and are hotly-tipped for success, with their bio describing them as a mix of Pixies and The Libertines. This seemed odd, as they’d apparently digested the Pixies songbook and assimilated the contents, but the only nod to The Libertines was a fondness for leather jackets. Anyway, Tribes were wholly under-whelming but they’re from Camden, they look good and are the kind of band you can imagine doing really well.

The same could be said of Scottish alt-rockers Twin Atlantic. Seemingly attempting to use Biffy Clyro’sslipstream en route to success, they also had little to offer in the way of invention and originality. Again, I’m already prepared to eat my words when they’re cleaning up at the Kerrang! awards in years to come.

The next act was The King Blues. I wasn’t familiar with their work beforehand and they immediately rubbed me up the wrong way with their faux-gangsta accents and easy political targets (guess what, boys and girls, extreme right-wing views are bad, who’da thunk it?). They certainly knew how to whip up a crowd, conjuring an enormous circle pit in only their third track, but I don’t like being preached to and patronised, so I meandered off in search of food.

Luckily, I returned in plenty of time for the day’s headliners, Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip. I was unsure as to whether socially conscious, literate hip-hop was the ideal way to close out a day at the festival, but my fears were allayed by Dan Le Sac’s scattergun attack of beats and bass. The limitations of their second album were exposed at times, but the hits were breath-taking. A full crowd chanting “just a band!” during Thou Shalt Always Kill while glowsticks waved frenetically is what festivals are all about.

The day’s live music over, we trudged back to the car and made our way back. We’d bought camping tickets but decided against pitching up due to one of our number living nearby and the fact that camping is the devil’s own pastime (my own views, not necessarily representative of No Ripcord as an organisation). It’s a good job we did too, because we awoke Saturday morning to torrential downpours and skies thick with dark cloud. As a result, we waited for a break in the rain before heading back to 2000 Trees.

This meant that the first act we saw that day was expansive Canterbury five-piece, Yndi Halda. The intricacy displayed in their ten-minute soundscapes was incredible, their songs exquisitely crafted from barely a whisper building up to a cathartic release of noise. The most obvious comparison here is SigurRos, but Yndi Halda look to be carving a niche all of their own – spellbinding stuff.

Next on the bill were Left With Pictures. I was curious as to why they’d drawn the smallest crowd I’d seen over the two days, but within five minutes I’d discovered the reason. Left With Pictures deal in the kind of chirpy, piano-based pop that’s reminiscent of a more facile Maroon 5 or Toploader with less substance. Musically, they were entirely competent, but the overriding feeling was that they’d been booked at completely the wrong festival. Plenty of people would love Left With Pictures, unfortunately for the band, none of those people were in attendance at 2000 Trees.

With that disappointment fresh in the mind, we dutifully made our way to the main stage with the intention of spending the rest of the day there. We were greeted by the thrilling racket of noiseniks, Three Trapped Tigers. I’d never heard a note of TTT’s music before, but was immediately enraptured by their stage presence and incredible sounds. Imagine an all-out assault of electronics accompanied by the most fevered drumming you’ve seen this side of Animal from The Muppets. TTT were a revelation, their songs have no vocals, they made my ears almost bleed, and they were comfortably my band of the festival. I implore you, investigate further.

Three Trapped Tigers were followed by The Twilight Sad, who didn’t particularly seem to be firing on all cylinders. Their reverb-drenched tracks failed to capture the imagination of the crowd and at times they sounded frighteningly like fellow Caledonians, Glasvegas. At one point, frontman James Graham impertinently threw something on the stage behind him, branding the crowd member responsible for its transit to the stage as “a bastard.” I never did discover what the offending object was, but it may have been the Frisbee I found an hour later, which had written on it a detailed list entitled “Why The Twilight Sad areshit.”

Next up came the band I’d most looked forward to seeing, Los Campesinos! Unfortunately, it seemed LC! weren't quite as excited to see me as I was them, and there was something oddly flat about their set. The bigger songs – Death to Los Campesinos!, Straight In At 101, You! Me! Dancing! – were formidable, but for too long it seemed they were running on auto-pilot. Lead singer Gareth Campesinos! was in a real self-deprecating mood, constantly thanking the crowd for their patience and seemingly on the edge of breaking down on more than one occasion.

Headliners Frightened Rabbit closed the festival with their measured brand of alternative music. My fancy was very much not tickled – think of a Scottish Snow Patrol – as Frightened Rabbit seem to be writing songs aimed purely at the stadium market. And good luck to them, they’re more than competent and unlikely to be put off their stride by not receiving my patronage.

We left part-way through Frightened Rabbit’s set. A poor showing, you might think, but the weekend didn’t stop there. After all, the festivities were set to continue in twelve hours, over 200 miles away…

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011)

In the aftermath of Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the singer’s mother remarked to reporters that her son had “gone and joined that stupid club.” The history of pop music is littered with an unusually high number of influential artists who died at the age of 27; as well as Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Robert Johnson and Richey Edwards all left this mortal coil in their 28th year. On Saturday 23rd July, 2011, another name was tragically added to the list, that of Amy Winehouse.

Sadly, the death of Amy Winehouse cannot really be viewed as surprising. Despite having made two marvellous, successful albums (2003’s Frank and 2006’s Back To Black), she was known to many primarily for her lifestyle and battles with addiction that had seen her become a tabloid fixture in recent years. However, to look back at the life of Amy Winehouse in such a way would be to forget the stellar body of work she created.

A graduate of the BRIT School, Amy Winehouse rose to prominence – in the UK at least – around the same time Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me was selling by the lorry-load and Jamie Cullum was rapidly gaining in popularity. Because of the jazz influences that ran through all their music, the press were quick to create a “nu-jazz” scene, which disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared. In truth, Winehouse’s songs always took in a much broader palette of influences. As well as jazz, there were shades of R&B, soul, funk, pop and hip-hop in her work. Clearly a fan of a range of artists, the sleeve notes for Frank thank The Beastie Boys, Ben Folds Five, Donny Hathaway, Carole King and Thelonious Monk amongst others.

Not only did she display a surprisingly catholic taste in music for someone barely out of their teens, Frankwas a staggeringly mature album, unflinchingly showing a bruised soul and life experience that belied her tender years. Lyrically, Frank is a masterpiece; whether it’s the useless paramour in Stronger Than Me, the startlingly candid retelling of her own infidelity on I Heard Love Is Blind or a pitch-perfect dressing-down of money-hungry girls in Fuck Me Pumps, not a word is wasted or misplaced. The real highlight, though, is the heart-breaking Take The Box; a detailed account of a couple dividing their possessions post break-up over gut-wrenching chord changes. Stronger Than Me may have won an Ivor Novello award in 2004, butTake The Box announced that Amy Winehouse had arrived.

And then there was that voice. When firing on all cylinders, Winehouse could sing bewitchingly with restrained vibrato and real emotion. It became her calling card, it was a smoky drawl that suggested its owner had really lived, and could add an extra dimension to her already devastating wordplay (check out her delivery of “The only time I hold your hand is to get the angle right” on In My Bed).

Frank received a Mercury Music Prize nomination – the award eventually went to Franz Ferdinand’s eponymous debut – but it was the release of her second album, Back To Black, that really catapulted Winehouse to fame and mainstream success. Whereas Frank was a mélange of various musical movements from the previous half-century, Back To Black focused more on the sound of 60s girl groups and the Tamla Motown label. With Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson producing, and musical backing from The Dap-Kings, Back To Black won five Grammys and was the biggest selling album of 2007 in the UK. To date, it has sold over three millions copies in her native country and is in the Top 20 biggest selling albums of all time.

A huge spike in sales didn’t blunt Winehouse’s lyrical barbs, however. Back To Black still has stunning vignettes in abundance, from the kitchen-sink tale of (more) infidelity You Know I’m No Good to the touching rumination Love Is A Losing Game. Sadly, the more her star rose, the more her personal problems seemed to overwhelm her, a cruel state of affairs for someone whose best-known song is entitled Rehab.

It was around this time that Winehouse’s life outside of music truly began to overshadow just how talented she was. Rarely out of the papers in the past half-decade, more and more was written about her addictions, marriage, appearance and increasingly erratic stage performances than her music. Recently, it appeared she might have been getting back on track, with a European tour (albeit cancelled after one show) and the rising popularity of protégée (and goddaughter) Dionne Bromfield, who is signed to Winehouse’s Lioness Records. Sadly, it proved that any signs of a recovery were premature.

Now we’re in the immediate aftermath of her death, it’s too early to predict what the legacy of Amy Winehouse will be. It would be nice to think there won’t be a slew of inferior, posthumous releases and a ghoulish fascination with her demise, but experience tells us this is unlikely to be the case. So, for now, let’s just remember Amy Winehouse the artist: a rare talent with a phenomenal voice, razor-sharp wit and an incredible, poetic way with words. Two albums, around a dozen singles and a huge well of unrealisedpotential – the music industry has lost one of its brightest stars tragically before her time.

The No RipCast

Attention! Four No Ripcord writers including me have seen fit to record a podcast. It's a review of the year so far and can be found at http://www.noripcord.com/features/no-ripcast-volume-1.

Hopefully this will become a regular feature so have a listen and let me know what you think. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

If Not Now, When?

Incubus - If Not Now, When?
released 11 July 2011 on Sony Music

It may seem paradoxical, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility for a band to become popular at precisely the wrong time. Around the turn of the century, their canny blend of heavy rock and hip-hop pushed Incubus towards mainstream success. Unfortunately, that was also the dark time in music history when nu-metal became inexplicably popular. Lazy pigeonholing meant Incubus were lumped in the same bucket as Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and their ilk by the music press.

In reality, Incubus were a cut above their contemporaries and streets ahead of the self-obsessed, baggy shorts crowd. In the years that followed, Incubus carved a niche for themselves as a competent hard rock band with a large, devoted fanbase, but had seemingly lost the hunger for experimentation that made them such a joy in their early years.

Following the release of frontman Brandon Boyd’s debut solo effort, The Wild Trapeze, last year, Incubus have returned with their first studio record in five years. It seems that Boyd going solo has had adisharmonising effect on the group dynamic, because for large sections of If Not Now, When?, it may as well be a Brandon Boyd album anyway. Incubus are blessed with phenomenal musicians, and part of the appeal of the band has always been the invention and genre-hopping of the sounds that came through the speakers, but it seems to have gone. Mike Einziger is a gifted guitarist, Ben Kenney creates greatbasslines almost at will (as you’d expect from someone who used to be in The Roots), but here they’re merely a foil for Brandon Boyd’s vision. It’s dispiriting to see this once fresh band be reduced to the status of back-up to a pretty boy singer.

This wouldn’t be quite so difficult to stomach if Boyd had become a better frontman in the intervening years but, if anything, he’s got worse. At a guess, his lyrics were written independently of the rest of the songs and as a result, he struggles to bend them to fit the music. The cadences and stresses are all in the wrong place – witness Promises, Promises’ awkward, “I’m a big fan OF yours AND I need a big mistake” – bringing to mind James Dean Bradfield’s noble attempts to fit Richey Edwards’ bile-fuelled rhetoric into songs in the early days of Manic Street Preachers.

And what lyrics they are! They may seem profound on the surface, but dig a little deeper and it’s a mish-mash of new-age, gap year nonsense and ham-fisted attempts at seduction. Boyd comes across as the kind of guy who’d befriend you, ask to borrow money, donate it all to a commune, then sleep with your girlfriend, claiming it was inevitable because she was a Scorpio. When he croons, “you should never have to defend being friends and lovers,” on Friends and Lovers, it’s more than a little creepy.

Musically, If Not Now, When? mostly sticks to epic sounds more suited to stadia. It’s also difficult to work out what turntablist DJ Kilmore actually does any more. As the albums progresses though, some of the old spark starts to return. The seven minute In The Company Of Wolves is fairly forgettable until near the end where the distortion pedal gets a bashing and the band really let loose. Maybe that’s a wake-up call; next track Switchblade is fun, if a little on the Red Hot Chili Peppers side, and that’s followed byAdolescents, which has shades of the A Crow Left Of The Murder... era, and finally discovers the big chorus that’s sadly lacking in the other tracks.

So, there are still hints of the old magic, but Brandon Boyd seems to have taken control of Incubus’ musical direction and put himself even more centre-stage. Too many songs are simply a vehicle for him pushing his voice to its limits, and little else. After half a decade away, If Not Now, When? really does feel like a misstep. Hopefully a little creative control can be wrestled away from Boyd in the future, otherwise a much under-rated band really could be lost forever.

Why I left Twitter

I left Twitter last week. This isn't news in itself and barely warrants comment at all, but I did have some followers (somewhere in the region of 120), several of whom I corresponded with on a regular basis. So, if you'll indulge me, I'd quite like to state my reasons for leaving.

Firstly, I was just spending too much time on there. Last week I had some free time in which I hoped to get lots of writing and subbing done. As it goes, I managed a fair bit, but not as much as I could have done, and Twitter was the main cause of that. Although it only takes a couple of minutes to check your feed and compose a couple of replies, that all adds up over the course of a day. Hopefully, no Twitter means more time to write, and perhaps more time to write self-serving blog entries like this.

Secondly, the News of the World hacking story broke last week. It probably appears horribly solipsistic and crass to draw any link at all between private investigators deleting the voicemails of missing children and me leaving a social networking site. However, when the story really went stratospheric, my news feed was full of bile, condemnation and links to further information. It's important to state that I wholeheartedly agree that these were terrible acts but, at the risk of sounding immature, I like to go on Twitter for a bit of knockabout fun and to talk rubbish about pop music. While the Twitter campaigns are admirable and, in the case of last week certainly, appear to work in some cases, that's not what I want of Twitter. Does this make me a bad person? Maybe, but it's the truth.

Finally, something that will mean absolutely nothing to an awful lot of people. Recently, a thread was started on The Word Magazine website about a perceived "clique," with their own brand of in-jokes and sycophancy. I don't believe a clique in such a form exists, but if there were one, I'm self-aware enough to know that, as a long-time and frequent poster, I'm more than likely part of it. When you can be deemed part of an online clique, I think it's time to take a look at the world you inhabit and take a step back.

Of course, the natural response to this would be to leave The Word Magazine website instead of/as well as Twitter, but The Word blog doesn't sap my time like Twitter does. Plus, I've made a good few friends via The Word (not just online, I mean real people that I've actually met in real life and everything), and I didn't want to completely restrict contact with them. So, sure, maybe not the ideal way to do things, but it's a compromise that works for me.

So, it's not necessarily forever and it wasn't me flouncing off in a huff with anyone. No-one's upset me, no-one's said anything that offended me, in fact, it's all pretty uninteresting. I just stepped back a bit and realised it wasn't what I wanted any more. I joined Twitter two years ago to promote my writing and, ironically, it was stopping me doing the writing in the first place.

I'm still on Facebook though. Don't know why - it's rubbish.

Wireless Festival 2011

The Wireless Festival isn’t really a festival at all. Festivals bring to mind tents, roll-mats, queues to get off the motorway and a part of the world you’d never normally visit. Wireless Festival takes place in the middle of Hyde Park in London – you’ve probably heard of it. It’s ludicrously easy to get to (there’s a tube station about a minute from the entrance) and there’s no camping allowed. As a result, Wireless cleverly puts on three completely different days of music. Friday was pop day, Saturday was dance day and Sunday was alternative day.

I gain entrance to the park and found the Janelle Monáe set already in full swing on the main stage. She may not have been around for too long, but she knows how to play a crowd like an industry veteran. There was dancing, crowd-surfing, call and response, and a bizarre moment where the band descended to a hush while Janelle encouraged the whole audience to sit on the floor. She was backed by a frighteningly competent band who seemed to be having just as much fun as the audience and whose dance moves were expertly choreographed. Reportedly, after her performance at the Glastonbury Festival was televised, sales of Janelle Monáe’s album, The ArchAndroid, rose 5,000%. Having seen her at Wireless, it’s not the least bit surprising.

Such a great opening meant next act, Katy B, had a lot to live up to. Eyebrows were raised earlier this year when I awarded her debut album, On A Mission, 9/10 on No Ripcord, but it’s a rating I still stand by months later. However, Katy B’s live performance came across slightly flat. Jumping up and down a bit and employing the tired trope of having some guy shout, “make some NOISE!” over half the lyrics isn’t the most engaging thing in the world. When you’ve just seen Janelle Monáe cover The Jackson Five with dancers dressed as Everton mints, you’re on a hiding to nothing really. Katy B’s idea of getting the crowd hyped may work in a dark club at 2am, but on a balmy June afternoon, it sadly doesn’t hit the spot.

The last two years have seen me rediscover my love of pop, but I still hadn’t actually seen an out and out chart pop act in a live setting. That’s why I was really quite looking forward to seeing Ke$ha. I wasn’t particularly familiar with her oeuvre but the subject matter of her songs soon became clear: drinking, partying and sex. Subtlety is clearly not in the Ke$ha dictionary – any time there was a line that may or may not have been a sexual advance, she’d point to her crotch, just to make sure there wasn’t any doubt. We were invited to go in her “glovebox” and told there was “a slumber party in my basement” while all around me, the crowd seemed to know every single word. Overcoming my initial bafflement, I got completely swept up in the euphoria and, despite it being the trashiest experience of my life so far, had an absolute riot. Say what you like about Ke$ha but she knows how to put on a show. It’s not often you see someone pretend to tear the limbs off their dancers and proceed to drink the blood from their heart. Towards the end, she shouted, “London! There’s one problem! There’s not enough glitter ON MY TITS!” The crowd roared and dancers in hot pants were deployed to add sparkle to her décolletage. You don’t get this sort of thing at your average Fleet Foxes gig.

Like Janelle Monáe before her, the sheer showmanship of Ke$ha meant that the next act were almost inevitably going to be a disappointment. The unlucky people this time round were Canadian electrofunk duoChromeo. Their keyboard stands looked like ladies’ legs in high heels, they had a talkbox and… that was about it in terms of interesting aspects of Chromeo’s set. After twenty minutes of music that had my attention wandering, it was decided that a pint of overpriced lager in a paper cup and a kangaroo burger were a more enticing prospect.

It’s often the case that you can feel completely outside of a movement. The popularity of an artist confuses you, not just because you don’t connect with their music, but because you’ve barely heard of them and it’s a shock to find out just how popular they are. This is what happened to me when I stumbled into Devlin’s set. The crowd were going crazy for Devlin’s freestyle MCing, but to me it just recalled the dark days of UK hip-hop before Dizzee Rascal and Roots Manuva broke through. I was half expecting him to bring out Mark B and Blade for a guest spot, but instead he brought out Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran is a ruddy-faced urchin who’s recently had a big hit in the UK with The A Team. However, I’ve no idea why, as he displayed all the talent and originality of a busker on the London Underground.

So, as has probably been covered in enough detail, I was left cold by Devlin and when he departed, my friends and I (including top NR scribe Craig Stevens) went to the front of the stage anticipating Battles. Poor, poor Battles. After setting up all their equipment, they launched into their opening number, only to immediately blow the speakers. An apology followed, as did twenty minutes or so of panicked roadies frantically turning things off and on again. It became clear we weren’t going to get a song any time soon, so props to drummer John Stanier who did his utmost to keep the crowd entertained with a marathon drum solo. Clearly no-one goes to a show to see a drum solo, but the audience were patient and we received more apologies from the group. Eventually, the band started playing, but only had time for two songs and it was clear something still wasn’t quite right. They were granted an extension and soldiered on for one more track, which still didn’t quite hit the spot. Battles left the stage to sympathetic applause, telling us, “we owe you a proper show next time,” but it was hard not to feel disappointed. Poor Battles.

After Battles’ departure, it wasn’t long before the stage was lit an eerie shade of red and full of space-age mixing desks. A giant net loomed in front of the crowd, on to which numbers were being projected. It all appeared to make no sense, which was completely to be expected as I was awaiting the arrival of Aphex Twin. A ripple of applause broke out, a silhouette made its way behind the mixing desk, and a bass note was played at the kind of volume and frequency which made my internal organs scream. A bit more ear-bleed tomfoolery occurred and then he broke out into Windowlicker, and the party really started. Unfortunately, the problem with Aphex Twin is that he makes dance music that’s impossible to dance to. This is fine at home, but in a big, sweaty tent, you’re in the mood for some communal swaying. Quarter of an hour in, I had an epiphany. He won’t even show his face, he’s being wilfully difficult and the potential fight next to me featuring a shove-happy stoner and the world’s most Cockney man is more interesting to me than the music, therefore I’m off. And leave the tent I did, not that the silly, beardy fool would have cared one jot.

This is the bit where I tell you all about the headliners, The Chemical Brothers. However, a combination of beer, bad timing and my kidneys (personally, I blame Aphex Twin) meant I found myself stranded from my friends on the edge of a heaving mass of people, with no way of getting back in. Twenty minutes into the Chemical Brothers set, they’d played one hit, I was too far away to get the real atmosphere, and I was frazzled from a whole day of music.

Remember I mentioned just how easy it is to get to Wireless Festival? It also means it’s incredibly easy to leave. So, call me a slacker, call me a quitter, call me a lightweight if you like, but I’ve never been a massive Chemical Brothers fan so I was happy to slink off into the evening unchallenged. I’d had a great day, but from my point of view, the best acts were all done and dusted by 5pm. I’d certainly go again next year though – when summer comes, that combination of good music, the open air and being with your friends is hard to beat.