Aug 18 2008 4:50 pm, Johnny K
So, it’s V Festival weekend. The highlight so far has been Duffy. Not musically, obviously. I mean, she drew a massive audience for her performance on the Channel 4 stage and if you like that kind of Luther Vandross meets Dusty Springfield thing, then she does a good job of it. But the real highlight comes when she speaks between songs. “Are you up for it???!!” she squeaks like a chipmonk through a megaphone, rousing the crowd from their slumber and forcing them to question whether they’ve slept through the whole of the soulstress’s set and have now woken up at some kind of helium-heavy Slipknot show. “I love you, but I gotta stay true,” Duffy croons, before once again squealing, “ARE YOU UP FOR IT?” It’s tooooo weird. Not so funny is the fact that V Festival is like rush hour at Clapham Junction, and we’re damn sure a weekend music event shouldn’t be trying to emulate a train station which proudly proclaims itself ‘the busiest in
Britain’. Trying to get away from Duffy, then, is near impossible. Everywhere you turn, the ground is full of people. And most of them aren’t even standing up. They’re sitting down on inflatable lilos, on collapsible chairs, or just on picnic blankets. It is more crowded than an English beach on the hottest day of the year and surely no one can be having a pleasant time. Queuing for anything takes approximately until tomorrow and if you want to see a band at a different stage, make sure you pack a knapsack of provisions for the journey there. Still, it’s hard to get too down about it when I’ll be on the plane to Ibiza Rocks tomorrow. Cage The Elephant are playing with The Streets on Tuesday and hopefully I won’t be too brain-damaged to make the flight back to
London on Thursday. From Stansted I’ll head straight to King’s Cross station and get the train up to Leeds festival, where, if things run as normal, it won’t take six hours to purchase a pint and people will be happy to simply sit on the mud. And maybe, just maybe, everyone will even be prepared to stand up and watch the actual bands.
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