a feast for the eyes & ears LED showcases what London can produce
L.E.D festival 2010 review
Thursday 2nd September 2010
This festival review round-up is brought to you today by the letters L (Loud, Lively and Lovely), E (Exciting, Extreme and Energetic) and D (Dance, Drum & bass, Dubstep) and by the number 2010.
LED also stands for London Electronic Dance Festival, in short a celebration of all things electronic in modern music. Having to compete with Reading Festival and SW4 on the same weekend for the first year of a festival may have been a bit tricky, but with a line up promising an excellent selection of artists across two days and all within reach of a zone 2 tube station in East London for that oh-so-handy trip home, there's very little to say no to a ticket.
The line up read like a who's who of dance music, from longtime heavyweights of Soulwax, Shy FX, Zinc, and Aphex Twin sharing stages with the likes of more modern acts like Tiga, Professor Green, Calvin Harris, and Boy Better Know, to name but a few. The line up ensured that no matter your taste, from mainstream dance to house to drum and bass to dubstep to electro to grime, there was a selection of artists that would keep kids dancing, despite last minute cancellations of several unknown artists. Even some of the more unknown acts AfroJack or Azari & III put on a good show.
Keeping the event nice and simple, headlining artists and larger stage acts got the main stage at one end of the park while others were confined to the secluded covered tent area at the other end, ensuring that the light shows could start earlier in the afternoon. As with all festivals, some clashes between artists appearing at the same time did occur, but with high level acts in attendance it was not difficult to enjoy what was on offer - judging by the turnout on both the Friday and particularly the Saturday, the festival managed to put smiles on a lot of faces and brought out a good crowd of revellers in raver gear, all out to have a good time. A special mention has to go to the guys and girls on Friday, who represented Essex in solid form!
Aside from being a popular festival, LED also stands for Light Emitting Diode (aka blinking lights) and I'm happy to say that the festival had these in abundance, including a full stage covered programmed lights boards, trippy light displays, psychotic laser robots and all accompanied by extreme visual sequences on screens. At LED, it is clear that the Vjs behing their laptops are becoming as important to the ensemble as the guys behind their decks, with headline acts and in particular Soulwax, Leftfield, Aphex Twin, and David Guetta not failing to disappoint with wild light displays and laser sweeps as the crowds lapped up the pumping techno.
If music be the food of love, play on. If LED showcases what London can produce in terms of a varied and upfront selection of electronic artists, then I for one cannot wait for next year. As much of a feast for the eyes as the ears and a great time was had over the two days.
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