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Sat 11 Aug – Field Day 2007

When you've got respected hosts such as Homefires and Eat Your Own Nose joining forces to curate a festival, you know it won't disappoint music lovers, so I’ll miss out the boring details like where I ate lunch or rants about what could’ve been better, but on the whole, I really enjoyed the day and I’m so glad I caught so many bands I’ve never seen or wanted to see, and the one band that convinced me I must not miss; one of the main reasons I went to Field Day: The Liars (OMG!). It was a real top class festival. There was a really chilled out atmosphere in Victoria Park, (if you managed to avoid the toilets and bars) and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

We caught Absentee first while sitting on haystacks… then went for refreshments as the queue for the drinks wasn’t so bad at that time. Then we saw some promising music from Florence and The Machine who were quite good and sung mostly covers. …

Sat 11 Aug – Field Day 2007

Okay, lets get the bad stuff over with first - yes, the bar and toilets. For the record, I was in the bar scrum from 15.20 to 16.20. I wouldn't have minded if there had been a queue, but it was a bit primal, and I'm sure there were people who started out behind me and ended up in front. But still, I did get a couple of beers without missing any of the bands I wanted to see. And full marks for the free drinking water pipe (although looking at the shoutbox it seems some people missed this). The other bad thing of course was the toilets. I guess being a bloke it wasn't too bad, but I can't say I was too impressed by all the other blokes peeing just about everywhere. I mean, I saw people sitting under some of those trees later at night.

Then there was the stuff that was missing. I looked all over for the pear cider but couldn't find it. And what about the largest marrow competition? I'd been thinking about buying one from Waitrose to see if I could cheat my way to some kind of prize. …

Sat 11 Aug – Field Day 2007

Were you to ask the majority of attendees what they thought of the inaugural Field Day festival (an event lest we forget billed as, ahem, “London’s new psychedelic Summer fete”) their likely response would be a series of agonised palpitations, the aforementioned attendee dribbling over their Panda Bear t-shirt as they begin a series of affronted rants, gabbling about queues longer than the list of people lining up to smack David Cameron in his fat face, the resultant agonising wait for alcohol and the paucity of veggie burgers, not to mention the hi-fi bedroom quality of sound slowly rendering even the most tantalising of live artists (Battles = one long drawn out sigh) into unintelligible echoes of their regular selves. This isn’t so much part of the review, but one big incontrovertible fact: of Gigwise’s army of friends, half had disappeared before Justice had pressed play on their big shiny CD player of a DJ set.

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Sat 11 Aug – Field Day 2007

A brief review of Field Day over here. Or at least the bits I saw in between being stuck in one queue and the next.

Sat 11 Aug – Field Day 2007

We had high hopes for Field Day and I think they were mostly fulfilled. Sure there were ridiculous queues for drink/loos/food, but in the end I didn't really want to drink too much and managed to see all that I wanted to - mostly from very close up.

First came a lot of sitting around enjoying Tea & Tarts, beer and sunshine. Then was a bit of Chromeo, who got us quite jazzed up and ready for more dancing. Some VIP beer smuggling by ywain meant we were well stocked for Erol Alkan. He played Phantom Pt. II which was a taster of things to come later.

We had to quit early (sadly) to go and see (much happier) Matthew Dear. Getting centre-front, we had the opportunity to watch the man who is, quite frankly, God set up alongside bassist and drummer. We did some none-too-subtle worshipping and danced and sang our hearts out. Several songs from Asa Breed (including the almost indecently funky Neighborhoods) were interspersed with a couple of greatest hits from his previous albums - Tide and Dog Days. …

Sat 11 Aug – Field Day 2007

what a gorgeous day! perfect for seeing your favourite artists.

who i saw:

to kick off the day we got an early viewing of caribouat 1.30. I thought they were on top form, i've never seen them live before. The highlight was seeing the two drummers in syncronisation. If you missed this then i hope you were seeing something else great!

fence collective a great acoustic set imo. everyone sitting down on the grass and bails of hay in the sun. Never seen them live nor had i heard anything by them before but i was certainly impressed.

the aliens. This was probably my least favourite of the day...not that I thought it was poor in any way i'm just not that big into the aliens. They had an excellent stage presence tho and the crowd seemed to enjoy it! the highlight was definitely robot man. I AM A ROBOT MAAAAAAN

electrelane. This was without a doubt my favourite. Only recently getting into them I didn't go in expecting to be blown away but i was. …

Due to a NUTHER migraine, I was late for the event of London's summer - as I liked to call Field Day. Much like summer this year however, it turned out to be a bit of a letdown, with some memorable exceptions which were more than made the most of.

Sad not to see Absentee, who opened the day in a bizarre piece of scheduling which I was ready to embrace but for the unfortunate circumstances. Also Caribou and GoodBooks, of whom I heard good reports. First discovery of the day was James Yorkston and The Athletes, a Scottish Bright Eyes with mouth organ. Very nice. Very quiet though.. which was to become a theme.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1130/1093495414_af8af5d157.jpg?v=1186928927

Atmosphere-wise, something was pretty unsettled about this festival - heavily influenced by the one / one-and-a-half hour wait at the beer tent I'm sure. Made it hard to get into the swing of things. Also the size of the Beetroot tent, which had the lion's share of the lineup and was regularly oversubscribed…