No Love At Lovebox

Last week, like many people, I read Eve Barlow’s blog on crowd behaviour at the Download Festival, the thrust of which was her disappointment and surprise at girls being pressured into flashing their chests on the main stage’s big screen. It wasn’t at the forefront of my mind as I went to the first day of this year’s Lovebox Festival in Victoria Park, but after a few hours, that situation had certainly changed.

I tend to stand on the periphery at any live music event, and thanks to the incredibly loud and frequent bass drops on show at Lovebox (24 hours later I’ve only just recovered), I was doing my usual killjoy impersonation. However, the planets seemed to align for some reason during Madeon’s DJ set. I’m not sure why really; it wasn’t particularly better than anything else I saw that day, and, when you’re my age, there’s something a little odd about raving your face off to someone who looks young enough to be your son.

This is Madeon. No, really, it is.

However, I found myself near the front, jumping around, limbs flailing and generally having a jolly old time.
As is often the case, a selection of girls (and some boys) were spending time sitting on their friends’ shoulders. The cameras would then focus in on these totem-people, display their image on the big screen, and the person on top would realise a split second too late to wave frantically at themselves. So far, so normal.

However, around 40 minutes in, a girl on her friend’s shoulders was subject to chanting from a group of lads in front of me (I think it’s fair to call them ‘lads’ here). First came a single, repeated word, “Boobs! Boobs! Boobs!”, before they decided to embark upon a chorus of, “Get your tits out for the lads” (see, they even self-identify as ‘lads’). The fact their singing was out-of-time with the pulsating beats of Madeon was far from the worst part; this girl looked genuinely distressed by what was happening. She started by just shaking her head at them but the longer the ordeal went on, the more sheepish she became, before she eventually got down from the shoulders of her friend. After another five minutes, she was gone, and I didn’t see her in the crowd again. The boys in front of me carried on dancing regardless, unaware the girl was even upset in the first place, let alone the fact she had left.

At this point, I was feeling pretty ashamed of my whole gender, but then the ‘lads’ turned their attention to another girl-on-shoulders. However, this girl seemed delighted to be the object of such attention, and lifted her top up to cheers and hoots of approval. This wasn’t enough for these people though, as she was wearing a bikini top. The chant of, “Boobs! Boobs!”, started up again, but this girl didn’t seem too bothered by it, and just descended and carried on dancing. Again, the boys lost interest.

I was genuinely baffled by this point. It’s fair to assume that many people in the crowd – me included – had had a few drinks by this point and, of course, that can lead to a loss of inhibition. Plus, many men change their behaviour when they’re exclusively in the company of other men (I’m not immune to this, my expletive rate certainly goes up when there’s an abundance of testosterone). But it didn’t stop me being amazed that men would be so blatant in their desire to see a woman take her top off and that there were women who didn’t see this as a problem. In fact, later in the set, a woman appeared on the big screen who had written the word, “TITS”, on her chest in red paint. Unsurprisingly, this won the much-coveted seal of approval from our good friends in front of me. What ‘legends’, eh?

However, the worst was yet to come. Near the end of Madeon’s set, one of the bantersauruses broke cover to go it alone and turn his attentions to another 11 foot female. His chat-up technique was extremely efficient. No timewasting with niceties such as conversation for our protagonist, no – he simply walked up the open-shirted girl, pointed at her chest and then grabbed one of her breasts. I expected him to get slapped, or at the very least a glower from the girl in question, but no, this didn’t seem to faze her one iota. Presumably buoyed by his previous ‘success’, he then proceeded to do it again. If you’re now thinking, “well, at least he wasn’t so lust-driven that he attempted to ‘motorboat’ her”, I’ve got news for you – he did that too. Following this, she climbed down from her friend’s shoulders, approached him, and they proceeded to happily bump and grind throughout the rest of the show.

Clearly, something’s wrong with this picture. Music festivals are, sadly, not renowned for being the safest places in the world. Even the Latitude Festival, an event whose USP is effectively family-friendliness – has been the setting for a sexual assault in its relatively short history. At a festival, you’re in a big crowd and most people are inebriated in some way – mostly through alcohol but Lovebox was also awash with drugs. I’ve led a pretty sheltered existence, so I was a little flummoxed by being offered drugs on six separate occasions during the course of the day.

Obviously this kind of male behaviour is deplorable, but I think I was more shocked and disheartened by the acceptance and even encouragement from the female side that I witnessed. The fact that, to some women, suggestive remarks and even blatant groping are taken in good humour or, in the most extreme example I was part to, are regarded as a substitute to an introduction, was an eye-opener to say the least.

There are a great number of brilliant feminist blogs and writers online, and in the media-centric, liberal bubble of the little corner of the internet I – and probably you – inhabit, it’s tempting to think we’re all well-balanced people with tolerant attitudes. But, as the popularity of sites such as UniLad have showed, there’s a huge following and lots of encouragement for this kind of thing and, scarily, it looks as if people are increasingly starting to see this as part of normal society.

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…

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.

Latitude Festival

So, that’s Glastonbury over for another year then. It’s certainly grown since its inception forty years ago, and now seems inextricably linked to the British summer. In fact, such is the constant Glasto-evangelism in the press, you’d be forgiven for thinking that festival season 2010 had already finished. Really, it’s only just beginning; between now and the end of September, fields the length and breadth of the country will be playing host to music, art, performance, food stalls, drink and more portable toilets than you’d ever want to imagine.

All festivals have their own unique selling points, but my heart belongs to one of the relatively new kids on the block: Latitude Festival. Set in Henham Park in North Suffolk, Latitude prides itself on its diverse range of entertainment and family-friendly atmosphere. This may not set your heart racing - Woodstock it ain’t - but in the 21st Century where playing live is how the money is made, festival-going (and, indeed, festival-goers) have dramatically changed. Whereas going to a field to watch bands play used to be the refuge of the insane, it has transformed first into the kind of activity you wouldn’t be embarrassed to admit to in public, then into a kind of rite of passage for anyone with more than a handful of CDs.

There is some amount of sentiment attached to my fondness for the Latitude Festival. I grew up in the Suffolk countryside and though it can be picturesque away from the urban centres, it always seemed like a desolate cultural wasteland during my formative years. Bands always went to London, they often went to Norwich and would occasionally play gigs in nearby Colchester too, but towns in Suffolk, particularly county-town Ipswich, appeared to have been left off the map when bands planned their nationwide tours. I first ventured to Latitude in 2008 and even had the entertainment been somewhat lacking, it would have at least been a step forward for the area as far as I was concerned. Happily, Latitude proved to be a joyful collision of all different forms of entertainment in a convivial atmosphere, set away in the woods in what could almost be its own private world.

For the attendee with no tribal attachments, what sets Latitude apart from its UK peers is the sheer range of acts to see. Yes, there are music stages (four, in fact) with the level of acts you’d expect from any mid-size festival but that really is the tip of the iceberg. Latitude’s comedy tent boasts an impressive line-up throughout its three days, as does the poetry arena, the cabaret arena and the theatre arena, which this year has more than one performance from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

If this all sounds a bit middle-class, that’s probably because it is - not for nothing has it occasionally been dubbed “Latte-tude”. Radio 4 have broadcast from the festival before, and this year for the first time, the second stage is to be curated by The Word, described as “the thinking person’s music magazine”. This continues an impressive trend; Latitude may have been small when it began (Stephen Fretwell fourth on the main stage, anyone?) but in the year of its fifth anniversary, it can attract some of the biggest names in popular music, such as woman-of-the-moment, Florence and the Machine.

So, you can keep your Glastonbury with a population the size of Leicester (half of whom seem to be waving giant flags) and I’m fine for T in the Park, thanks. To be honest, I don’t fancy a trip to the Isle of Wight or Reading and Download isn’t my scene. I’ve my reservations about Summer Sundae and I’ll be giving Hop Farm a miss if it’s all the same with you. The most enticing place to be this summer is the fields of Suffolk with a pint of lager and the sun (hopefully) on your back. That’s where you’ll find me anyway, whether I’m in the front row for Belle and Sebastian, laughing to the sarcastic monologues of Rich Hall, watching Mark Lamarr’s radio show with Geno Washington or thinking up new and inventive ways to smuggle one of the numerous pink sheep out of the site. While the number of festivals is apparently increasing exponentially year on year, it takes something special to stand out from the crowd. You could do far worse with your summer than take a trip to the East of England and join the Latitude crowd.