Sunday overview

After yesterdays hit and miss mish mash of the utterly awful with the downright uninspiring I wasn’t approaching todays line-up with the usual sensation of over-excited optimism that follows me around to most festivals.

Instead of a buzzing, atmospheric vibe the campsite had been overcome with a morbid despondency, it was as if the life had been sucked right out of the festival and then reincarnated as a vicious covering of mud, a bit like the pink goo from Ghostbusters 2.

I was consoling myself with the fact that, on paper, today’s line-up looked remarkably good. Although compared to yesterday I would have probably been quite happy if they had resurrected all of the past Big Brother winners and got them to perform an extended version of ‘The Sound of Music’ on the main stage.

While walking around the site one thing at V became apparent, if the bands aren’t your thing – then what on earth do you do? Sure you can pay £20 to be hurtled skywards in a spherical cage by a giant industrial sized elastic band, or perhaps you can secrete yourself in the deep recesses of the EA Games Hut, where you can be subjected to an excess of flashing lights, bleeping sound effects and mechanised teenagers indulging in the latest incarnation of some video game, but other than that there is very little to see and do.

The nightclub… no sorry dayclubs, are usually packed to the rafters by festival-goers who think that new bands must therefore mean bad bands and have gone for the safe safe option of listening to a DJ play someone else’s songs while they attempt to get hammered on Strongbow or Bacardi. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of this of course – if people want to pay £120 to sit in a field and play computer games or dance to pre-recorded tunes in a canvas mock up of your local nightclub then go for it.

I paused briefly by a group of students who had decided to breathe some fragile life into the festival and were evoking a mass sing-a-long to Oasis’ ‘Don’t look back in Anger’. Forget Corporate sponsorship and sensationalised hype, all you really need is a bunch of students and an acoustic guitar.

Sadly by the time I had finished picking holes in the lack of entertainment I had missed the opening act, Daniel Powter. I hung around the Channel 4 stage and caught bits of The Saw Doctors, and as good as they were I have no idea what they’re doing here, perhaps someone rerouted their sat nav and sent them to V instead of Beautiful Days.

Last year we had The La’s, this year we have Kula Shaker, and after seeing KS’s comeback tour, rather egotistically referred to as ‘The revenge of the King’, I was rather hoping that Christian Mill’s band would be able to work the Staffordshire crowd into a dance frenzy. Sadly it was not the case and Kula Shaker’s new material like ‘Dictator of the Free World’, sounded even more dated than their original material. Hits like ‘303’, ‘Hey dude’ and Deep Purple’s ‘Hush’ were sporadically included in the set but were always halted by the band’s decision to push their new songs – and you can’t really blame them, but I’m sure a few omissions could have been made and a few old gems like ‘Sound of Drums’ could have been drafted in instead.

Over in the JJB Puma tent something special was going on – courtesy of one South African and his rather special multi-instrumental set up of harmonicas, didgeridoos, Aztec drums, djimbes, guitars, and all sorts of other instruments which a competent four piece would have struggled with. Xavier Rudd had drawn in a modest crowd, but those who had gone to see him had blatantly gone with a purpose and all around me people were dancing and gyrating to the sound of slick African-style beats and fantastic guitar hooks. Rudd was probably the only artist on the bill who would slip into the category of ‘roots music’, and it was refreshing to know that V had booked someone this diverse and talented, as they occasionally do. Pure Brilliance.

From Xavier Rudd’s performance onwards the festival began to lift off and Bloc Party’s art punk-rock was mesmerizing the main stage. ‘Two More Years’ and ‘Like Eating Glass’ were definite crowd pleasers but the best was saved to last when they burst into the brilliant ‘Helicopter’. The set held together in much the same way as their album does, listen to one song and it’s rather unfulfilling but listen to the album in its entirety and you allow Bloc Party to sink into your mind, and the effect of their transcending melodies is reflected in their live performances. Even ‘So we are’, a track I personally despise, took on a beautifully ebullient tone that pulled the crowd together for the first time all weekend. Things are definitely getting better.

Over on the Channel 4 stage it’s being announced that The Ordinary Boys have had to cancel their performance; bad news for anyone who was hoping to get to the front for Girls Aloud, as they were due to play in the JJB at the same time. We are Scientists came on a little later as a result, but pulled out a blistering set using guitars borrowed from Editors and even enlisting the help of Bloc Party’s Russel Lissack.. The band tear through favourites from their album ‘With Love and Squalor’, and between their half humorous half irritating back chat, manage to bang out a fantastic set.

The festival is in full swing now, the bad atmosphere had evaporated as quickly as the bad weather and people were really enjoying themselves. Shoving off my anally retentive indie snobbery that I pride myself on, we headed to the most sought after tent in Staffordshire for Girls Aloud.

What an awesome set!! No kidding. The crowd was filled mainly with leering middle aged men who couldn’t resist ‘get yer tits out’ jibes, and refused to dance, tap their feet or even show any sign of excitement, well facial excitement anyway. Which was a shame because Girls Aloud really were entertaining.

Half way through their set they left stage, presumably for a costume change and a group of camper than camp dancers started doing cheesy dances to a rather unimpressed crowd. Now what do you expect to happen? Imagine Radiohead taking an early shower and being replaced by a party political broadcast from the BNP. Understand?

Various objects were hurled at the dancers – who rather unsurprisingly were a little bit pissed off, and a bottle war began to take place before Cheryl Tweedy appeared back on stage to calm the crowd down…and everything went back to normal. The only song that actually kicked the crowd into life was a cover of ‘I predict a riot’ when the girls legged it from one side to the stage to the next for no apparent reason. The crowd decided among themselves that it was fine to dance to a Kaiser’s song, regardless of who it was played by and from there on the atmosphere was great.

The set came to an end and the tent emptied through the side of the tent – literally. As the festival drew to a close there were only a few bands left to see. The consistently brilliant Editors drew in a huge crowd on the Channel 4 Stage, and their splattering of Joy Division meets Interpol numbers were more than a little palatable for the V Fest crowd. Back in the JJB Arena The Go Team were putting on another fantastic set – the festival really seems to be steam rolling now!

I checked into the Virgin Mobile Union to check out Danish Indie prog-rockers Mew, who are set to accompany Bloc Party on tour. I couldn’t stick around for long as it wasn’t nearly as inspiring as I had hoped for a band so fantastic on record. The lacklustre crowd probably didn’t help matters and I left to face one hell of a decision.

Radiohead…..Kasabian…..Fatboy Slim….or Sandi Thom, ok – forget the last one, but picking the final band on Sunday at V Festival was one of the toughest clashes I’ve ever come up against. For a lot of people it would be a no brainer, V had booked Radiohead and then had thrown the towel in, gone on holiday to the Virgin isles and let the rest of the weekend sort itself out. You really did get the impression this festival was centred on Radiohead – so surely to miss them would be criminal, unjust, a waste, immoral, amoral, inhumane, mind-shatteringly stupid, and yes anything else a typical Radiohead fan would throw at you. So, I saw that I only really had one option.

Kasabian were bloody good – I enjoyed every minute of it. Sure they’ve borrowed aspects from The Stone Roses, Oasis, Happy Mondays and Primal Scream but while most of the aforementioned bands tended to struggle to put on consistently brilliant performances, Kasabian manage to do it with all the ease and grace of seasoned professionals. Mesmerizing to watch, and gripping to be part of – the set was nothing short of spectacular. The singles from their debut album were obvious highlights, most notably ‘Cut Off’ and ‘Processed Beats’, but some of the new tracks showed a different, softer side to Kasabian, like the delectable ‘Sun/Rise/Light/Flies’. ‘Shoot the Runner’ sounded criminally like ‘Dr. and the Medics’ version of ‘Spirit in the Sky’, and not too dissimilar to Goldfrapp’s ‘Oo La La’ either.

Onec the band finished I decided to leave the site, not wanting to face the V campsite after such a positive end to the festival. On reflection V Festival 2006 did suffer from one day of bad acts, and a second day of good acts – but with the exception of Xavier Rudd, Kasabian and Bloc Party nobody really stood out from the crowd. There were no truly festival moments to speak off and the overall vibe was dismal.

If V wants to carry on then it needs to evolve as a festival and check out the competition. Leeds and Reading has 3 days, T in the Park has heaps better bands playing across more stages, Download is putting on night time entertainment – but what is V doing? – they’re setting up tiny little food courts on the fringes off the arena fence, that’s what!

Bad atmosphere, not enough good performances, a huge lifeless site, crates of Carling at £40 each, and a dull unforgiving campsite all lead to a disappointing V. Not that I didn’t enjoy the festival – I really did, and there were some encouraging moments, but V has a long way to go if it wants to be held in the same esteem as the rest of the big boys.

Latest Updates