James bring Bingley Music Live' Saturday night to a spellbinding close

After the sold out 15,000 capacity Bingley Music Live 2009, 2010 had a lot to live up to. With the price kept down to 2009 levels of just £30 for the weekend, the line-up really shouldn't have made an impact, however without a crowd drawing act like last year's Scouting for Girls, BML 2010 was always going to be a struggle.

I heard they had sold 11,000 tickets this year, which although disappointing compared to last year must still be considered a success. With online forums and facebook pages full of complaints about poor headline choices, my own feeling was the organisers made a brave decision in creating a festival with a diverse range of acts from all genres, for all ages and they really should be congratulated for this.

After a summer full of festivals our campervan decided on the Thursday it didn't want to play anymore, with the van in the garage until Monday we managed to borrow a car for the Saturday. The journey to the festival was relatively easy, with park & ride service signposted & readily available. Myrtle Park is in Bingley's town centre and is a wonderful park for a festival. The festival only has one stage which means staking out your pitch, laying down your picnic blanket and enjoying the day. Last year there where major concerns with toilets, a two hour wait for the ladies meant ladies squatting anywhere out of desperation, this year I am pleased to report the toilet situation has been eased immensely with the installation of male urinals, which made more portaloos available for the ladies. The bars also seemed to be larger than last year which meant queuing was kept to a minimum.

We spoke to a few festival goers and where surprised to find visitors from Glasgow, London and Wales, with many saying they had heard how good last year's event was they had to visit this year.

Our first act of the day is Example with his dysfunctional electro pop tunes, appealing to both young and old Example gets the crowd bouncing, the hit laden set included Won't Go Quietly, Watch the Sun Go Up and Kickstarts. As Example is usually classed as a rapper I was genuinely surprised and pleased to see him backed by a real band, making the sound a real live experience.

Reef bring a bit of rock to Bingley, now I must admit I don't know a lot about Reef apart from the one song Put Your Hands Up, but even so they where entertaining & kept the crowd on their feet unlike Public Image Limited. PiL have been on my must see list for years now and maybe I was expecting to much, opening with This Is Not A Love Song, Lydon snarls at the crowd, as someone throws a cup of beer he snarls "Beer's for drinking not throwing.." which seems to wind up the beer throwing element who proceed to throw Pepsi bottles, Lydon picks one up and complains that they are not original and should be drinking the stuff. The song he is singing, I don't remember the song as he replaced all the lyrics with abusive messages to the crowd. Lydon stays rooted to the mic stand and does not move for the whole set, truly disappointing!!! The front row readily flick 2 fingers and shout at him in mutual disaffection...

So the headliners James make their way to the stage peaking almost immediately it seems by opening with Sit Down, making the crowd go bonkers, but this is merely an introduction as Ring The Bells quickly follows, lead singer Tim Booth removes his woolly hat to reveal the famous bald head. The hit laden set continues with singles Seven, Born Of Frustration & Come Home. Booth goes for a crowd surf before the end of the set. A truly spell bounding, wonderful headlining set and great way to bring Bingley Music Live's Saturday night to a close.

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