A mature festival like SXSW, running for the first time in London, has some serious expectations to meet. SXSW is unparalleled in size, using Austin’s big convention centre, numerous hotels, cinemas, and music venues, but with a remarkably compact footprint. You can overdose on music, films and interesting talks, without straying too far from the convention centre or hotel. Austin seems to have a density of music venues, probably unparalleled outside of Nashville.

London’s iteration announced that it was going to be based in Shoreditch. There are obvious synergies. The ‘New Media’ industries that based themselves in Shoreditch over the last 20 years, are always in attendance and Austin has clearly influenced Shoreditch over the last 20 years.

However, there are fundamental problems SXSW London needed to address and sadly, they go beyond there being no breakfast tacos. My first concern was simply that I’m not sure Shoreditch is capable of hosting a festival of SXSW Austin’s size. London as a whole is. It has the conference centres. It has more music venues than Austin. It has more cinema screens. But it is also a massive city compared to tiny Austin. Its conference centres are spread across the city. Its music venues sprout up in little creative hubs across the city and while say Leicester Square could handle the film festival, they would be too expensive and big for the festival to use and the smaller arthouse cinemas are spread across the city.

Another problem, unlike Austin, where it takes place over 10 days and Interactive finishes and music takes over, this festival was going take place over 6 days. The overlap between ‘interactive’ attendees and music has always been remarkably small, with the interactive attendees seemingly on company expenses, leaving at the start of music, so there’s no competition over venues. Clearly squashing everything into six days, across an unknown number of venues – with no conference centre in Shoreditch meant that the perceived value of conference badges was far less. You might therefore expect the badges to be cheaper. But they weren’t. The Platinum badge for London was more expensive than the last badge I bought in 2019. They even tried to pull a US trick that us in the UK aren’t used to. Quoting ticket prices excluding VAT.

Given all these unknowns. You would assume that SXSW London would try to cover them off to encourage ticket sales. With regular news about speakers, the venues they were using, featured films and artists playing the music festival, etc. Instead, it seemed their main approach was simply to offer discounts to previous SXSW attendees and to stay quiet about what we should expect for our money. There was no way I was purchasing a full badge for what was clearly going to be a second-class experience.

When they finally announced the list of artists. The lineup wasn’t what I was expecting. I was expecting it to be full of the best new indie talent from around the UK and Europe. Instead, there were slim pickings. I guess in an effort to reflect the more diverse music of London, there was much more R&B and rap. In fairness, this was the right thing to do, this diverse mix of music reflects London’s music scene. But to sell tickets, you need to provide something to entice the usual gig attendees. The lineup was so unappealing that none of my gig buddies bought tickets. These are the very people you would expect to jump at buying wristbands, people who gig across London most nights and attend festivals like the Great Escape. Their argument were that there was more than enough good stuff happening in London and with no clear draw, it was easier to do a normal gigging week.

I’m of the belief that London is crying out for a multi-day, multi-venue festival. Other UK cities have them. Many, like The Great Escape, seem to have modelled themselves on SXSW and I expected SXSW London to be in prime position to become the London multi-venue festival. However, after this first festival, they have a lot of work to do to make this happen.

A few weeks before the festival started, they finally announced venues and music wristbands. The wristbands were very reasonably priced. £100 for the six day music pass. The venues, were pretty much what I expected. XOYO, Village Underground, Old Blue Last, Rich Mix, Strong Room Bar, Jaguar Shoes, Colours. There were some surprises, such as Shoreditch Town Hall.

On the surface it didn’t look too bad. Not brilliant. But not bad. There seemed to be no late licenses. So venues would finish at 11pm meaning I could travel in each day and go home to my own bed.

However, in reality, there was a lot of walking for very slim pickings. At SXSW I can see 35 bands in a day jumping between venues on Reds and 6th Street. At SXSW London, I was seeing less than 10 bands a day. I see more at The Great Escape and I’ve spent years moaning about the venue density.

What surprised me most, was how little impact SXSW had on Shoreditch. On the first day, walking down from St Pancras, through Angel, down to Old Street, I didn’t see a single poster or sign. Even in Shoreditch, it wasn’t prominent. Most bars, shops, cafes and restaurants seemed oblivious to SXSW with no signs encouraging SXSW attendees into their establishments.

The second day, I got off at London Bridge as I wanted to visit WEX on Commercial Road. Walking up Brick Lane to the main conference hub at the Truman Brewery, you wouldn’t know anything was happening. Basically the first SXSW sign I saw was at the Brewery. This isn’t a SXSW I’m used to. You can’t move in Austin for SXSW branding. Austin breathes SXSW.

Despite some backing from Sadiq Khan, the festival was almost invisible. This isn’t unusual for London. Even big football matches can have little impact on the city. But you expect the local area to embrace the event. Shoreditch seemed oblivious the event was happening. This has to change for the festival to be successful. London needs to do better. Sadly, with some venues seeing really low footfall, they might have a problem convincing existing venues to participate next year.

During the week, the lack of venues proved problematic. Some had dual use. During the day they were conference venues, in the evening music venues. At times there were only half a dozen venues in use and given the diversity of music, it meant at times there wasn’t much to listen to. That isn’t to say I didn’t try other music genres, but none of it really excited me. At one point on Friday afternoon, there were only three venues with music on. That’s just not good enough.

One advantage of the low key first year was that despite there being few venues, most of the time it was easy to get into venues. This was a real positive. If I’m dragging myself 20 minutes across Shoreditch, I need to know I’m getting in. Other than one event, even the Village Underground was easy to get into – and with none of their usual security search shenanigans.

Hopefully, they can grow the venue density over the next year by enticing some of the pubs to host gigs while increasing the audience. If they just increase the audience, then there simply isn’t enough venues and everyone will be queuing.

One massive positive was that the British Music Embassy put in a short but welcome appearance. The BME is sponsored by industry and the DTI to promote the British music industry in the USA. So you wouldn’t expect them to be hosting a venue in the UK. I think there was a realisation that maybe SXSW London needed a bit of a helping hand and they spun this up at the last minute. Anyone who’s been to Austin knows that the British Embassy team are one of the best. Taking over Devonshire Square for two days, featuring some of the hottest bands who played their Austin venue, such as Gurriers, they provided a real showcase venue. Hopefully, they will be more involved next year.

Sadly, SXSW London hadn’t enticed any of the national groups who put on SXSW events in Austin. The Aussies are still taking their music to The Great Escape. SXSW London seemed to have missed a great opportunity to encourage the European music industry to bring their country’s artists over.

Not everything was within the control of SXSW. Unfortunately, like Austin last year, SXSW London experienced some controversy. Several artists signed up to SXSW without researching what SXSW is. Pulling out when they realised that the main conference featured talks from politicians and companies with connection to activities they didn’t agree with. Then the usual peer pressure caused artists to drop out at the last minute when they decided Tony Blair speaking at the conference, didn’t fit with their morals.

I don’t have an issue with artists pulling out of events when they are caught off guard or protesting when they don’t agree with something. Many argued SXSW Music told them that there wouldn’t be anyone controversial giving keynotes. There seemed to be a feeling that the different SXSW stands were keeping each other in the dark and that SXSW Music were unaware Blair was speaking. Personally, I don’t buy this. I don’t think SXSW perceived Blair as an issue and they are hardly going to tell bands that their big surprise was that they had arranged for ex-Prime Ministers to talk. It’s also hardly surprising that there might be individuals on panels who might have connections to things artists don’t like. I always feel artists should play and make it known that they disagree. But they shouldn’t don’t pull out due to peer pressure. In this case, many just look like idiots who had not bothered to research what SXSW does.

Rant over.

But it was annoying.

Some lineups were devastated, with massive gaps in the running order. When many of the stages had hand curated their lineups, trying to encourage representation. Artists pulling out denied opportunities to other who may have benefitted from the exposure. From my perspective, at times it meant very little music. Given most stages tried to be diverse, alongside numerous lineups that defaulted to diversity, such as two stages of South Asian music and several LGBTQ+ stages. There were points in each day when there were zero indie artists. Best way to illustrate the issue was Scottish music brought no indie artists. Probably fulfilling their arts funding, they brought a diverse selection of artists. But when everyone else was doing the same, it meant the lineup didn’t appeal to the average ‘6 Music’ gig goer.

Next year they need to tweak the formula. Increase the number of venues to get more of the normal traditional indie fare on the bill. They shouldn’t reduce the ratio of artists from the diverse musical and social backgrounds by increasing the indie representation by adding new venues. They need to keep the number of venues with none indie music as I think this could be SXSW’s key unique selling point compared to all the UK indie festivals. Maybe they need to encourage some of the notable indie venues around London and the UK to bring local lineups, so the traditional indie audience will buy tickets. Personally, I think it would also be good to get London-based Loud Women involved who seem to strike a good balance pushing inclusivity.

Musically, it could have been stronger. If this is the standard next year, The Great Escape will feel relieved. Many of the artists I saw, I had seen before. New artists that stood out were Bethia Beadman, August Charles, Cosmonaut, Uncle Junior, Karma Sheen, HMS Morris. But there were slim pickings. A weekender at the Windmill would have a stronger lineup.

There are some things the festival can’t fix, the main one being the weather. It wasn’t fun trekking between venues in the pouring rain. Maybe next year there needs to be SXSW branded umbrellas? It was most definitely not the Austin experience.

What was most disappointing, by the time Saturday came round I think the corporates were heading home. With heavy rain that day, I think people headed home and footfall was atrocious and by the end, Benefits, the last band of the day had maybe a dozen people watching them in an empty 93 East. With such poor turnout at these venues, SXSW may have a job convincing them to take part next year.

SXSW is definitely a ‘work in progress’. It felt like it was a pencil sketch of a potentially good idea. Apparently SXSW London operates as a franchise and has a multi-year contract. The talk at the festival was that there is a Berlin addition planned. If that’s the case, London needs to quickly turn its pencil sketch into a more realised version. Berlin sounds more attractive to me. My feeling after this year is that it has a long way to go to convince the UK that this is the default place to find new music. It may end up having to drop live music from the festival and accept it is simply an ideas festival.

Artists seen

Amelia Coburn, Anaiis, August Charles, Ava Joe, Baby Said, Benefits, Catrin Finch and Aoife Ni Bhrian, Beauty Sleep, Bethia Beadman, Charlie Austin, Christopher Clarke, Clara Serra Lopez, Cosmonaut, Cucamaras, Eden J Howells, Ella Jinks, Ellor, Enjoyable Listens, Florence Road, Gia Ford, GIFT, Girlband!, Gurriers, HMS Morris, Hollows, Hornet, Jay Chakravorty, Joviale, Kaoti, Karma Sheen, Kay Greyson, Korda Korder, Levitation Orchestra, L’Objectif, Lucky Iris, Orchards, MONO, Mystery Time, Nikitar, PRITT, Robinson’s Village, Samuel Sharp, Salvana, Sm*sher, Sol Paradise, Stay In Nothing, SUDS, Sunflower Thieves, Taliable, Tatyana, The White Gates Band, Thistle, Trisha Tan, Uncle Junior, Vegas Water Taxi, Vulva Voce, Wave Machine, Wildes, Yasmin Umay

Support was from Stranded Horse.

With so many bands around, it’s now possible to catch gigs from the first day as some of the corporate parties have bands play and this was the case this time, with the White Denim playing on the first evening. But even before SXSW started it was possible to catch some of the great local Austin music by simply walking into any of the dive bars on 6th street.

2016 was a bit of an odd year. Yes, there were hundreds of great bands around but despite the fact that it was SXSW’s 30th anniversary, there wasn’t the buzz of previous years. There weren’t any massive bands playing secret shows and during the day and there seemed to be less parties. I think part of this is due to Austin trying to reduce the crowds turning up for the free parties. But I’m not sure this really is working, the crowds were still massive and they seemed to be mainly walking around on the streets. It didn’t help that Austin police had decided to introduce some crowd control measures that made it very difficult to move between venues.

One of the reasons why I loved SXSW was that it was so easy to move between dozens of venues and catch bands. If you didn’t like the band, you could then move across the road and see another one. So it’s been a great place to hear lots of different types of music and discover new bands.

This year, the venue density was lower. Last time I was here, quite a few showcases had shifted to Rainey street but there was still a good core set of venues on 6th and Red River. This time, some venues had shifted out east of I35. These tended to be sponsored venues with the bigger bands and I think part of the reason is to encourage people to stick to the venue. If you’ve queued to get into a venue that’s out of the way, you’re going to stay. Unfortunately, the venues that were left on 6th had changed. At my last visits, The Parish and Maggie Mae’s offered five stages that you could loop around in 10 minutes and catch a lot of music. The Parish was now a single venue and Maggie Mae’s split their stages into separate venues so you had to leave one venue to go back in. Maggie Mae’s also seemed to have switched to programming electronic and rap music and this unfortunately was also the case for several other venues.

In all honesty, rap is the biggest problem facing SXSW. The increase in rap programming seemed to encourage massive crowds who were seeking free gigs hoping that big name rappers were going to turn up. This also encouraged ‘rappers’ turning up often with massive crews trying to push their rap albums on the crowds on 6th street. I’m not sure if rap had led to issues at previous SXSW’s but it seemed like they’d concentrated rap programming into single venues often with heavy security. But this mean that whole venues disappeared off my ‘bounce circuit’. At times 6th street was literally at a standstill.

Unfortunately, the thing I really loved about SXSW was the ability to bounce around venues. I go to SXSW to discover new music. I tend to plan lightly with just a few bands I’d like to see and then just bounce up and down 6th and Red. With the increased crowds I just wasn’t getting to see the same level of bands I’d expect to see each day. Don’t get me wrong, during the music part of SXSW, I was still seeing 20-30 bands a day but it took a lot of effort to catch this number and it took a few days to optimise my route to maximise the amount of bands I caught.

It sounds like I didn’t enjoy myself this time. This is far from the truth. I had a brilliant time watching some great bands in venues ranging from churches to dive bars.

There were the usual programming surprises, where you stumble upon a band you hadn’t realised were playing SXSW. For example going to a venue to watch the excellent Ezra Furman and realising that Mercury Rev were on afterwards. So getting the opportunity to see a great band in a relatively tiny venue.

Them there was the opportunity to see music that I’d never otherwise catch, such as the South Korean band Jambinai who mix traditional Korean instruments to create some really good ambient rock music.

It was also an opportunity to catch many British bands that I hadn’t managed to catch at home. Often they were playing the frankly excellently organised and managed British Music Embassy. YAK, a band I’d been unable to catch in London, I caught playing an excellent set at the British Music Embassy.

In total I managed to catch over 130 bands. This isn’t the complete list as I didn’t catch the name of every band but as you can see it’s a pretty diverse range of bands

[Alexandros], Abjects, Amber Arcades, Autobahn, Avec Sans, Baby Shakes, Basia Bulat, Big Thief, Big Ups, Black Fast, Blaenavon, The Blind Suns, Bombino, Boy Toy, Burn Out, CallMeKat, Capsula, Castillo, Caveman, Chad Valley, Chocolat, Ciaran Lowery, Clean Cut Kid, The Crookes, Demob Happy, DEXSTRINGs, Diet Cig, Dilly Dally, The Do Aways, Dude York, Elanor Friedberger, Enemies, Ezra Furman, Faith Healer, Fear of Men, FEWS, Fior, Fizzy Blood, Get Inuit, Gold Class, Golden Boys, The Gooch Palms, Guerrilla Toss, Gwenno, GYMNSHORTS, Haelos, Harts, Heaters, The Heavy, Hinds, Hooton Tennis Club, Houndstooth, Jack Garrett, Jane Weaver, Judah and the Lion, Juiceboxxx, Kat Dehlia, Keeps, Khruangbin, Laura Carbone, Lazyeyes, Lushes, Lusts, The Parrots, Petite Noir, PMS and the Mood Swings, Jambinai, Julia Jacklin, Luke Sweeney, Magic Is Real, Mainland, Mercury Rev, _Methyl Ethyl, Modern Sons, MONEY, Mothers, Moustache Prawn, Mr Lewis and the Funeral, Nancy Pants, New Berlin, Night Moves, Obn IIIs, Oh Pep!, The Outfit, TX, PARTYBABY, PHASES, PINS, Phebe Starr, Poliça, Power Trip, Protomartyr, Pure Bathing Culture, Queen Suitcase, Ritual Howls, Rozi Plain, Rubblebucket, Runaway Saints, The San Juan Project, Sara [], September Girls, Seratones, Sister Fuzz, Slingshot Dakota, Sorority Noise, Spooklyland, Sons of an Illustrious Father, Spook School, Stealing Sheep, Sunflower Bean, Sweet Talk, Sweet Spirit, Sugarmen, Tacocat, TEEN, Tele Novella, Tiger Town, Thelma and the Sleaze, Trash, Trevor Sensor, Twin Limb, VACATION, Violet Skies, Warprty, Waxahatchee, The Weather Station, Welshly Arms, White Denim, White Lung, The Whistles and the Bells, Wild Belle, Yak, Yonatan Gat

I’ve highlighted bands who stood out. I thought Yak and Yonatan Gat stood put in the best performances of SXSW. But bands such as Sunflower Bean, Ezra Furman and Mercury Rev put in really strong performances. Then there were some great unusual situations that enhanced performances, such as thunderstorms forcing the Barracuda to move their outside stage inside their venue with the bands being playing in a circle in the centre of the room surrounded by the audience. GYMNSHORTS’s performance really was enhanced by this and I’m not sure I would have been as impressed if they’d played outside on a stage.

My only disappointment was missing the Kills. They were playing two venues that according to Twitter, always seemed to have queues so I couldn’t be bothered spending time queuing to see a band I’ve seen numerous times and that I’ll catch again in the UK.

From a photography point of view. Getting a good shot wasn’t a priority. So although I had my Sony A7s with me, as soon as music officially started, I left it in my hotel and just carried a pocket camera and if there wasn’t an opportunity to get to the front, just grabbed a shot simply to document out who I’d seen. I also decided towards the end of SXSW to try and capture some of the atmosphere of SXSW and captured lots of short 20 second clips of video.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcuA-R0pCTw]

First up was an emotional performance from Dakota Suite and Quentin Sirjacq. His performance felt real and the audience seem to buy into it. It made my life a bit difficult. Everyone seemed to be listening intently. Not good for getting a range of audience reactions. But clearly, the everyone was enjoying the performance so much you could hear a pin drop.

Next up was Michael Price accompanied by Peter Gregson on cello. His beautiful minimalist music used the piano, cello and some effects to layer a beautiful soundscape. After the intensity of the first performance. This atmospheric music seemed to drag us into a more reflective space and again, everyone was listening intently.

With such intensity, the final band, Arcadio were perfect tonic to prepare everyone for the afternoon lifting everyone out of their contemplation with a rhythmic salsa, jazz fusion sound.

Ellie Lovegrove

Ryan Teague/Gamelan

UCC Handbell Ringers

The first few years I attended, the festival was free and based in the Hitchin town centre and had a lovely feeling. With local businesses and community getting involved. They were also constrained by the location. So had to put on more quieter folk music and the church ‘stage’ always featured interesting world, folk and classical-type music. When it moved to Hitchin Priory the focus shifted to music that was loud enough to be heard on big open air stages and in my opinion has become far less interesting musically.

On the surface, it should be a decent festival. There’s still a quieter ‘church’ stage. (with massive sound leak from the noisy main stage). There’s a ‘new music’ stage (BBC Introducing), a big main stage and a few other smaller stages. But it doesn’t work. One small stage, is a ‘mates stage’. The guy running it, puts his mates on each year and it’s lineup is a bit stale. The BBC Introducing stage seems to be 80% ’emo’ rock and despite having 100s of band in London to call upon, only seems to put bands from the ‘Three Counties’ radio catchment area. The main stage is mainstream with ‘festival world music’. You know the type, most of it sounds the same. Music styles that have been westernised by the inclusion of electric guitars and the band dress in ‘traditional dress’. It tends to be bouncy with shouting sections. It’s usually enjoyable, but it’s not something you’re going to listen to afterwards.

Cost wise, the ticket prices have jumped from £6 to £15 per day. As the early bird price of the Great Escape is only £45, you can see that at £15 per day, it’s no longer exceptional value. Last year, they also removed a stage. So there’s even less music than there used to be. Yes, it’s still ‘good value’ for a festival, but it’s not good value from a music perspective. With London on the door step. I can often see a whole day’s music for less than £15. (This weekend I saw 9 bands for £6 and my train ticket was £10). So for me, the draw to the festival isn’t as strong.

But what was the music like this year?

First up was Worry Dolls a band a friend had recommended. They sounded good and had some nice songs. But I’m not a fan of country music and they veered off into a fuller ‘Nashville’ sound far too often for my liking.

Worry Dolls

Worry Dolls

One thing they have got right, is that they have a ‘community’ stage for young local artists. Some of these were pretty decent. First person I caught on this stage was Charmaine Dawson who sounded nice.

Charmaine Dawson

Over on the ‘Arcade Electric’ stage, or the ‘mates stage’ as I call it, due to the regularity of bands getting a repeat booking, one of the said repeat bookings were playing. Maharaja Blues, mix sounds from India with American blues. It sounds okay. But this was the third time they played. If ROTW is a music festival, it should feature new music. If it’s a community festival, then it needs to drop the pretence and price.

Maharaja Blues

On the main stage, was one of the ‘World Music’ fusion bands that have become so popular at ROTW. Blending Brazilian rhythms with Ska. They sounded okay.

The Fontanas

The Fontanas

The Fontanas

Back to the little community stage and one of the first pleasant surprises of the day. A band called Adiescar were playing. The lead singer had a great voice. Her vocal style reminded me of the lead singer of Esben and the Witch. Unfortunately, the music wasn’t up to their standard. But her voice kept me interested. Unfortunately, I only managed to catch the last two songs.

Adiescar

Over on the BBC Introducing stage was the Roxy Searle Band. They didn’t really do anything for me.

Roxy Searle Band

Back to the ‘mates stage’ and a very young looking artist called Izzy Rowland. As you can see from the photo. She looks very young and appeared to only sing cover versions. But it’s all good experience. 

Izzy Rowland

Back on the main stage was another returning artist. Raghu Dixit played a few years ago. They have an ‘indian style’ fusion music. The lead singer is very engaging but the music wasn’t too strong.

Raghu Dixit

On the Introducing stage were an interesting band called ‘Live//Learn’. They’ve got a very heavy electronica sound. At times it was layered so heavily that it was almost goth. But they put on a decent show. Not my type of music. But they kept me interested

Live//Learn

Another young band, Such Strange Arts, put in a good performance. But they were the standard type of indie that Hitchin seems to like. Another pop punk band.

Such Strange Arts

An example of where the festival messes a up from a music perspective. Los Pacaminos are not a Mexican band, but 80s pop star, Paul Young’s country music band. Women of a certain age crowded the front of the stage. But the music wasn’t to my taste. It would have been much better inviting over a real country or Mexican band

Los Pacaminos

Back on the introducing stage another loud rock band, Scar City. But the lead singer put in a great performance. Sadly the crowd were small. Maybe Hitchin’s youth is growing out of punk, emo, hardcore, PPP punk, skater rock music

Scar City

Scar City

There were some ‘world’ instruments. But not sure playing a ‘world’ instrument should classify the performer as a world music artist. But at least he was closer to the festivals core. 

My surprise for the day was a Dutch(?) band called My Baby. After a slow start with several technical problems they finally got going and their rhythmic blues sound was fun to watch and listen to.

My Baby

My Baby

My Baby

English Manner

The Skints, playing a mixture of ska, reggae and hip hop played the main stage. The crowd enjoyed their performance. But they did little for me 

The Skints

Soma

Keid

One new band (I think) on the mates stage was The Fierce and the Dead. The bits I heard were almost prog-rock. But the guys seemed pretty talented. 

The Fierce and the Dead

The Fierce and the Dead

Closing the Introducing stage were an Elbiw like band, Amber Run. Sadly the crowd was still small and they missed the best band on this stage. 

Amber Run

The Brand New Heavies closed the main stage. Meh

Affinity Tribal & The Drum Work Collective closed the Church stage. Frankly this confused the hell out of me. They should have been on at the beginning of the day not the end

As you can probably guess. My love/hate relationship continued. The festival really needs to work out it’s identity. Is it Hitchin festival or a World music festival. If it’s the later, then it needs to start to improve its programming.

Although the line-up was weak. In some ways I can understand why they make so little effort. By the time Blur came on, the park was full of people who really don’t care about music. I’m not sure why you spend £70 to meet friends at a music festival and then have to buy expensive food and drink, when you could have met in pub elsewhere in London. But some of the crowd was really distracting.

I made a decision to try and see the other bands. (Even if they were all rubbish) So when Blur were playing, I didn’t want to spend 20 minutes pushing towards the front. So I found a place with sight of screens and stage and settled in to watch. But the first 10 minutes of the Blur gig was spoilt by everyone, and I mean everyone, talking. Not the quiet talking. No, the ‘we don’t care what’s going on around us, we’ll make as much noise as necessary to be heard over the music’, talking. Why, do you go an expensive gig, to then talk over headline act? I know it’s their money, but it’s also my money they’re wasting, by und. In the end. I kept moving further and further back until the crowd thinned out and it returned to a crowd who were watching the performance. I guess it was my fault, for not pushing down to the front.

Once I’d found a decent position. I thought Blur were brilliant. Unlike the Strokes. They knew their audience. Damon talked to the crowd rather than at the crowd. The band seemed to be enjoying playing and there was a lovely happy vibe coming from the stage. The new material, especially ‘Thought I was a Spaceman’, worked really well. The obvious crowd pleasers, pleased. I was a great set. I’m really glad I’ve managed to finally catch them. But I think it’s the last time I go to a Hyde Park gig. I’ll stick to small venues.

Oscar

Oscar with product placement

The Horrors on in daylight – it’s just wrong.

Hanni El Khatib – enjoyable set garage rock set

Beach – didn’t find them interesting

Jupiter & Okwess International – standard festival world music.

Kitty, Daisy and Lewis -good. But I didn’t feel their music translate too well to big stages. Some sounds are bigger when they’re smaller.

Metronomy – as interesting as a metronome

Roots Manuva – not sure why these were on the bill

Partying

Oscar (again)

Blur

Blur