London Freeze climaxes with a night of electro-pop
London Freeze 2009 review
Wednesday 4th November 2009
Joining the ranks of sports themed music festivals, Freeze takes it to a new level. The last thing you'd think about central London is that its a perfect place for skiing...and by the Sunday of the festival you can tell why. The snow on the ramp looks to be thinning to the point of being dangerous to ski on let alone do jumps.
That doesn't stop the constant stream of skiers from going down it - once the remaining snow was re-arranged to make it somewhat safe to do so. Apart from the looming figure of Battersea power station the festival was in an unremarkable cold wet parking-lot with about as much atmosphere as a Milton Keynes roundabout. The perfect place to have a cup of tea in a polystyrene cup and wonder, with an odd sense of pride, how such a ridiculous event is actually happening.
Having a quick wonder round the site you soon find out that there's not much of a reason to stay away from the main stage and ski ramp area unless you want a quick game of giant connect 4 or table football in one of the small lounge areas in the market area. Other than that, a few ski / snowboard stalls, the usual array of food and drink stalls and bars.
The Sunday is pretty much the electro-pop day of the festival with Soft Toy Emergency, Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, and Dan Black opening up the main stage. With masses of similar sounding bands at the moment, nothing really jumps out as being too imaginative but the eager crowds get dancing, covering themselves in UV gloop from glowsticks and generally having a laugh. With the main focus still on the ski ramp and the freestyle big air competition the crowd is pretty thin but large enough to keep the bands.
Chase & Status draw the biggest crowd – straight after the competition finishes – and everything starts to fit together. With the tent packed out, the bassy soundsystem fills the tent without being hampered by the usual central London sound restrictions. With the stunning addition of live drums from Andy Gangadeen of the Bays, the fairly commercial drum and bass has a good edge. With special guests of Kano for 'Against all Odds' and Plan B for 'Pieces' the flow never lets up. 'Heartbeat' is a nice surprise with Saul Milton picking up an electric guitar to give a bit more punch to the performance.
With the temperature dropping people start to leave even with the Snowboard Freeze Grind Comp and headliners Friendly Fires still to go. Having not seen them before I was eager to catch one of the most hyped bands of the year even if the shivering was looking a bit too twitchy. Despite a solid performance and some animated dancing from lead singer Ed Macfarlane there was a steady flow of people leaving, which I joined.
With a hard job of tailoring music to a crowd mainly interested ski / snowboarding the festival works pretty well and times sets to fit in around the sports to give good balance so its easy not to miss too much. Sadly the cold needed to keep snow snowy means its not so good running into the night unless your prepared and bring an extra jumper.
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