Splendour 2011 had everything, great music, great weather, great venue
Splendour 2011 review
Wednesday 27th July 2011
This year's Splendour Festival at Wollaton Park promised to be the best Splendour since it began back in 2008. Splendour is still in its infancy in comparison to some of the big hitters on the festival calendar.
However the organisers seem to be able to attract some of the best acts around, and this year was no exception, armed with Eliza Doolittle, Blondie, and Scissor Sisters, as will as Feeder and Cast to name a few.
Thankfully this year the weather was extremely sunny unlike previous years where it has rained.
Once again the majestic Wollaton Hall overlooked the audience and was a pleasant landmark to look at when waiting for bands to start.
Opening act The Money, were a great way to open the event, they seem to have the right ingredients to make their career quite successful. After they had finished I went for a browse round the stalls, this year they had chocolate and sweet stalls, as well as the usual food and beer stands.
To me the beer seemed rather expensive at £3.75 per drink. To be honest everything seemed overpriced with regards to food and drink. So once I had managed to secure a bank loan to cover dinner and a drink, I looked for a space to sit. In previous years it was always spacious and not overcrowded, however this year it was rammed to the rafters, and I believe it had completely sold out.
Justin Currie (Del Amitri) managed to captivate the audience and he even threw in 'Last to Know' which created a nice summer festival sing-a-long.
Cast seem to still have plenty of fans and 'Walk Away' is a sure fire crowd pleaser, even if it is for nostalgic reasons.
The arena started to fill up for the arrival of Eliza Doolittle, who surprisingly is able to play festivals with such ease and can keep people mesmerised with her incredible vocal ability.
After Eliza Doolittles performance, it was going to be a difficult to top that and Blondie had the mammoth task of trying to outshine Eliza Doolittle.
As much as I love the hits of Blondie, vocalist Debbie Harry was pitchy at best; I think a warbling cat would have sounded better than she did. It is terrible to watch an original artiste desecrate their own music, but she did it with amazing ease. Hope she retires soon.
After that it was a quick walk over to the Jagermeister stage to catch Feeder, who without doubt are the ultimate festival band. Sure enough they delivered the goods and my faith was restored in live music after the train wreck that was Blondie.
The main stage was set for the headliners Scissor Sisters. With their style of synthdisco radio friendly pop music, it would have been hard for them not to be impressive.
Opening with 'Nightwork' Jake Shears and Ana-matronic were like an unstoppable overhyperactive tour de force. Ploughing through crowd pleasers such as 'Laura' and 'Take Your Mama'.
I think to say they had the audience eating out of the palm of their hand would be an understatement, I believe they could have just stood on stage and read a telephone directory and the fans would have lapped it up.
Like most bands the kept their biggest hits for the ending of their set, and sure enough 'Filthy/Gorgeous' was the last song before they went off stage to await the obligatory encore. Predictably they saved 'I Don't Feel Like Dancing' for the encore.
Without a doubt Scissor Sisters turned a brilliant day into an exceptional one. If you only ever get to see one band in your lifetime then Scissor Sisters would have to be the one to pick.
Splendour 2011 had everything, great music, great weather, great venue.
I've started to count down to next years Splendour already, although they will be hard pushed to top this year's event!
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