Lovebox 2009 – The Review
Even before a guitar string had been plucked, cymbal crashed or disc loaded (or should that be MP3?), there was plenty of hubbub surrounding the seventh Lovebox Festival. First there was the news that Mark Ronson would be performing with Duran Duran on the Saturday night and secondly the news that Groove Armada have announced that their new album is complete and will be released in the Autumn (after a Spring postponement). As it happened one of those pieces of news was a disappointment, the other (so far at least) could prove to be far more exciting.
Unfortunately after having to queue for quite a bit, VV Brown’s set passed us by which was was annoying but this was offset by the freebie hand-out of a pommegranate (sic) drink called Rubicon on the walk down to Vicky Park. Very tasty stuff indeed and we made sure we took full advantage of their generosity on the Sunday morning too!
After milling around and enjoying a bit of Dan Black and sampling some of the produce from the Pimms double decker we headed over to the Main Stage to enjoy an evening of music which started with Florence & The Machine. I’d been severely put off by all the hype surrounding her but despite the Curtis-cum-Kylie mad dancing I was quite impressed. The cover of Candi Staton’s You Got The Love was a great finish and one of my favourite individual songs of the weekend.
I was greatly anticipating N*E*R*D’s set and I was not disappointed! They absolutely rocked the place bringing out all the big ones such as Run To The Sun, Lapdance, Rock Star and Provider. They started getting people up with them on stage with a couple of songs left and as the opening notes of All The Girl Standing In The Line For The Bathroom played they invited all the women in the crowd to join them on stage. Cue mass bundle for the front and a result of about 50 girls dancing to the final number…all going suitably MENTAL AT BEING ON STAGE WITH PHARRELL! As Michael Winner would say – “calm down dear, it’s only a concert”.
I won’t bore you with what my pre-set thoughts of Duran Duran were – they were awesome and blew the ventricles off Lovebox. I surprinsingly knew more Duran Duran hits than I thought and this made it even more enjoyable when having a slight jig to songs such as A View To A Kill, Rio and Ordinary World. Simon Le Bon did an admirable job of playing the seasoned frontman (as he should!) with plenty of crowd interaction, costume changes and great vocals. And now to the first real disappointment of the weekend. After seeing Mark Ronson at Glasto last year I was expecting something a bit off the wall – a new twist on some Duran Duran classics if you will. Instead all we got were a few “come-on-make-some-more-noise” hand gestures and a couple of twirls mid-song. Quite why he was invited to play in the first place I have no idea…he might has well have not been there. Not that it took anything away from Duran Duran’s performance – they rocked Lovebox and have been doing the same to my headphones ever since!
Day Two started off a lot more sombre enjoying a beer whilst listening to Matt Berry (that guy from The IT Crowd) but slowly built up with Rokia Traore and then Noah and the Whale later in the day. Despite that annoyingly pretentious, Chris Martin, by-making-myself-look-depressed-it-makes-me-appear-’deep’ persona, Noah and the Whale were enjoyable and their hit 5 Years Time was very well performed and well received by the sizable crowd on the Gaymers Stage.
Back over at the Main Stage, Kiwi ladette Ladyhawke put on a brilliant show. I first saw her supporting Black Kids at the back end of last year and she outshine the headline act that night and she again put in a performance which asked the question why she wasn’t pushed further up the bill. My Delirium, Back of the Van and Dusk till Dawn were faultless and had the 20 thousand strong crowd really buzzing. I guess she hasn’t got the legs in terms of big records to put on a lengthy hour and a half long set but watch this space!
The less said about Doves the better (with the exception of Black and White Town) but their poor performance didn’t seem to dampen the mood leading up to GA hitting the stage. Their obligatory mammoth setup was broken up by a couple of short films that had been shown on the screens throughout the weekend. My personal favourite was Gopher Broke (which was apparently nominated for an Oscar) which is the tale of a luckless little Gopher who is trying to nick food off passing lorries. He fails miserably and too right as well the thieving little bugger!
The Groove Armada set flowed, as they usually do, from one orally orgasmic tune to the next (Easy, At The River and Fogma included) but it was the new material that really set this Lovebox performance apart. Their new vocalist is Saint Saviour from The RGBs (we did their website at Isle Interactive) and she did a great job of fronting – prancing around in a leotard with her fluroescent mic cable – and her vocals have added a whole new dimension to an already infinately sided act. The new album could well be another GA classic and I’ll be scouting for any upcoming tour dates to catch their new show live. Of course, no GA performance would be complete without a monster Superstylin’ finale and the 40 thousand-strong crowd were all bouncing along to, surely, one of the best festival tunes ever written.
Check out my Best of Lovebox 2009 playlist for some of my favourite tunes from he festival.
