Johnny Marr joins Chic, and The Flaming Lips shine on first day of Parklife

Parklife Festival 2012

Saturday 9th to Sunday 10th June 2012
Platts Field Park, Manchester, England MAP
£64.50 for weekend, Saturday sold out

Daily capacity: 15,000

Sat on the train bound for Manchester Piccadilly Gaz and myself bounce with excitement at the prospect of our first festival of the year, with some of the names booked to play, such as De La Soul, Chic and The Flaming Lips all sandwiched into a line-up full of the big players in dance music this has all the makings of a great weekend, I just cant help but wonder how some of these acts will go down with the baseline crowd? How is this one going to pan out?

Well the answer to this question in my eyes is superbly, the booking team have pulled off a blinder. Showing they really know their audience well.

around the festival site

We arrived fresh into Piccadilly and soon find our way onto a Parklife bound bus with ease. (I'm later told that this is apparently the busiest bus route in Europe?) as we approached the festival site of Platt Fields Park the obvious transition from city centre to weekend festival was becoming more and more apparent as the change from suits to wellie boots took over, there was a reel buzz about the streets, we jumped off the bus ready and rearing to go, first festival of the summer here we go.

The weather forecast was stereo-typically Mancunian with rain forecast pretty much solidly through the day, and as we enter the turnstiles the first field inside the festival resembles the Somme, the site was split in two by a river, and a thicket of trees, running through which was a small gangway over a bridge which linked this smaller field to the main body of the festival, all in all a really nice quirky little venue. All about the site are dotted art installations to capture the mind, the best of these are the giant wicker men and my favourite the Wrekon robots, giant sized metallic creatures, robots and animals that capture the imagination, or after a few too many may frighten the life out of the wrecked punters, of which even at this early stage there are many.

So over to the main stage and first on this weekend are The Cuban Brothers who bring their razzmatazz carnival atmosphere complete with dancing troupe on stage to a warm reception from the few that have braved the rain. Together with their house band they cover an assortment of crowd pleasing anthems. The crowd lap it up and dance their troubles away under the clouds. The good old Manchester vibe is coming through strongly. With the rain picking up, it's the tented venues that are where most of the punters are to be found. We had a little wonder around to see what all the tents had to offer.

Today saw tents hosted by Chibuku, Kaluki Now Wave and Thrasher, we ended up in the Crosstown Rebels tent watching Subb-an, with a real meaty set of electronica, unfortunately we only caught the ending 15 minutes. But from what I saw I will be looking out for this name on line-ups again.

We headed back undeterred by the rain to the main stage to see a scratch master DJ Yoda, with his set opener being a mash up of some booming drum and bass and the theme tune to Coronation Street he had come with his whole box of tricks to smash a hole in Manchester, and he got a huge reception for it, keeping the audience firmly on there dancing toes for the duration of his hour long set, which seemed to pass in minutes.

We decided to take an amble to the second stage, named the Metroplex arena where we stumbled in on the last few minutes of local legends North Base. They had a spell over the crowd, and quite rightly so, with the energy they were throwing into it. All I could hear for the rest of the day were chants of "when I say north, you say base".

It was time for some food so we visited the immense Wagamama for some Ginger Chicken Noodles, which had come highly recommended and boy they did not disappoint. Still munching on this treat we caught the start of the so called The Phenomenal Handclap Band - the ginger chicken lasted longer than my interest in the group on stage. Two and a half tracks was long enough for me to decide I wasn't staying, so we bounced on back to the Metroplex Arena.

Where it was all about to get a bit fast and furious DJ Hype was taking to the stage, and he lived up to his name! He whipped the crowd into a huge hype, with mosh pits breaking out all over the place, sick deep dub step drops were firing off at regular intervals keeping the mosh pits happy, almost inciting riots between rival mosh pits. The current explosion of dub step shows no signs of relenting if this crowd are anything to gauge popular opinion on.

Time to give the ears a rest and step back outside to witness a master at work, next on the huge outdoor stage was Nile Rodgers and Chic. They brought out all the classics but not only that they managed to extract the sun from behind the clouds with their colourful funky set. With such a rich back catalogue to pick from Nile treats us to a trip through hits by Sister Sledge, Duran Duran and David Bowie. But holds the ace up his sleeve for last, everyone loves a good cheesy dance and sing along at a festival and 'Le Freak' was to provide this, but with extra home town spice! Local legend Johnny Marr arrived to take lead guitar duties, and on seeing him emerge from the smoke the crowd erupts! There is an obvious kinship between Nile and Johnny as they obviously love playing alongside each other.

One of the moments of the weekend! To follow it was the job for Kelis. An unenviable task at the best of times. She decides to add extra pressure by turning up 35 minutes late to the dismay of the crowd. To top this off when she finally arrived onstage in a dress that looked like it had been stolen from Princess Fiona from Shrek's wardrobe. The problems got bigger and bigger, with horrendous feed back screeching and the drummer and DJ out of time! This was to be one of the worst openings to a set I had ever had the displeasure of cringing to. I expected a crowd pleaser next to win back the crowd. But no this was not to happen, and she carried on with relatively unknown album tracks to the displeasure of the audience, who had all come to hear 'Milkshake' and 'Accapella'. Kelis was half way through her set when the power was pulled at 7.30pm. I'd like to think the singer will learn a lesson from thi, but perhaps she won't. If she wants to keep in this game I think she needs to raise her game, and more than a little.

After seeing DJ Yoda earlier in the day we decided to make the small commute back to the Metroplex tent to catch Jaguar Skills, which was sight to behold! One of the undoubted kings of the mash up, it surprises me his hands don't combust. Once again this arena is packed to capacity with people squeezing in wherever possible, maybe a slightly bigger tent wouldn't go amiss. Whether the site would allow it with it's limited space is another question.

After a winter of gigs indoors I was determined to spend as much time outdoors as possible, so Noah and the Whale beckoned me to the main stage, this was to prove much like the 'Average Handclap Band' earlier boring me to tears within 2 songs. So on I moved, via a tree house set up as a DJ booth we ended up again in the Metroplex Arena where Zane Lowe was manipulating the crowd up and down, bouncing like lunatics. 30 minutes was enough to cover the time that Noah And The Whale were on stage for, and once this time was up we returned to get a good spot down the barrier for what was to be the true highlight of the weekend.

Having already spied Wayne Coyne around the site earlier, in a suit which wouldn't go amiss on Doctor Who, I was all ready for this performance. After seeing The Flaming Lips at Glasto a couple of years back I knew what to expect. However Gaz didn't have a clue, and this was half of the appeal. Seeing someone's jaw drop for over an hour is quite fun. The Lips hit the ground running coming on stage to what felt like the explosion of a thousand confetti canons and the release of about two hundred balloons about six foot in diameter. They tear into the 'Ya Ya Song', and set out their stall strongly. People were stood in glee and amazement at the sheer spectacle that is a Flaming Lips gig!

Just when you thought things couldn't get bigger the leader of the psychedelic ball himself, Wayne climbs into a giant hamster ball-like zorb, inflates it on stage and goes for a prowl over the crowd, he has THE Biggest grin on his face as he makes his way to the sound tower and back to the stage, to the rapturous applause of the shell shocked crowd. The show goes from strength to strength building up and up to the epic ending track 'Do You Realize' and leaving not a dry eye in the house. The stage is awash with people including his band of twenty dancing women on stage in school girl costumes, not even the inflatable dancing frog on stage can believe the past hour and a half. The lights come up and The Lips take their triumphant bow. WOW, there are no more words to describe a Lips gig.

review by: Jamie Licence

photos by: Jamie Licence