Underage Festival: Blog 2

Upon stepping out of Mile End tube station, the realisation that I have no idea where Victoria Park is arrives undesirably; a quick glance left and right reveals nothing but congested city streets. Being late already, a sense of anxiety is just beginning to descend, when suddenly loud laughs echo around and a throng of fellow teens, smeared in body paint, stroll into my field of vision. I jump up to follow them, there’s only once place they’ll be going, right?
Entering the site of Underage Festival 2010 the view that we’re greeted with is not the usual calm pastures of Victoria Park, but a multitude of enthused teenagers; clad in every piece of clothing to ever hit the shelves in Topshop/Topman. Apart from the occasional security guard, and of course the bands, there isn’t an adult in sight. The abundance of face paint and liberal lack of complete clothing makes Underage Festival look like a scene from Lord Of The Flies might have done if they’d hosted a music festival. Although, as the tumultuous circle pits show; with even less civilised inhabitants.

Los Campesinos! are the band causing havoc on the main stage simultaneous to my arrival (meaning I missed Egyptian Hip Hop plus the apparently hilarious stage show of Darwin Deez, boo) and they’re on fine form. Frontman Gareth Campesinos! takes a reflective moment to announce “I think [Underage Festival] is really fucking important”, and as an excitable 14-year-old next to me whoops loudly as they begin the next crowd pleaser, probably enjoying his first festival experience, you can’t help but agree.

There’s a great diversity in the line-up to suit all possible attendees’ requirements, whilst Everything Everything unleash their catchy art-pop on the crowd assembled at the Youth Music stage, Tinie Tempah is whipping up the main stage congregate into a frenzy. Especially when declaring that the Swedish House Mafia had asked him not to play a particular song, but ‘This is the Underage Festival man!’ being his justification for launching straight into it. It’s not without mild emotional turmoil that I drag myself away to the tent where Everything Everything are just about to start. This sadness quickly subsides though as they kick off with ‘QWERTY Finger’, a track from forthcoming debut album ‘Man Alive!’. The whole set proves to be one of the highlights of the day with smiles on the watching faces not faltering throughout.

Crystal Castles take to the stage afterwards and within seconds Alice Glass dives into the crowd. In contrast Ethan Kath stands stationery; providing the explosive electronic sounds to unite with Alice’s high pitched screams to release their intense, electro-thrash madness into the mob in front of them. Chaos ensues and muddy dust from the floor flies high into the air as hundreds of crazed spectators convolute in wild euphoria. Ellie Goulding provides some light relief after the Crystal Castles induced mayhem with her emotionally charged pop songs, “this is a sad song about a boy” she shares before performing new single ‘The Writer’.

20-minutes later than advertised M.I.A. takes the main stage as the headline act for this year. Throughout the performance colourful video visuals play behind as she showcases songs from new album ‘// / Y /’ as well as providing the hits, including ‘Paper Planes’. The crowd is a little underwhelming for a headline act, but M.I.A. seems unaffected and completes a good performance to end Underage Festival for another year.

The introduction to live music and the great platform for young musical inspiration to develop makes Underage Festival an event not to be dismissed, as Alice Glass put it so well earlier; “You guys are the future!”.

Patrick Hinton