Lovebox
Weekender
“To
me, Lovebox needs to capture the spirit of Glasto. We need to
create a vibe that’s welcoming, but as anarchic and arresting
as our restrictions allow.”
Andy
Cato from Groove Armada
said that about the festival that he and band-mate Tom Findlay
have been running in London since 2002, although their Lovebox
concept stretches to Lovebox the club night, Lovebox the album
and apparently its how they refer to their record box that they
take out djing. Other, more euphemistic, meanings have been suggested
but you can probably work that out for yourself…
Taking into account
Groove Armada’s previous records, performances, style, you
would expect a festival of house music, loadsa glow-sticks, whistles,
men with Mitsubishi symbols painted on sweaty topless bodies,
right? Well you’d be wrong. The ‘dance festival’
has come a long way since the first Creamfields in the mid 90s,
when those naughty scousers realised they could put on a good
ol’ rave up in the middle of a field, completely legally,
if they dressed it up as a festival. Clever boys. Not so clever
were the minority of image conscious clubbers who turned up for
24 hours of noise, rain and mud with only a pair of furry boots
and a bikini to protect them from the elements.
So, while anything
associated with Groove Armada is bound to be associated with nightclub/dance
floor culture, this festival has to be the most eclectic I’ve
ever seen, in terms of the acts performing, and of the crowd it
attracts. The line-up is absolutely massive, with 10 stages/tents
each with a vague theme ranging from Main Stage (fairly self explanatory),
to Up All Night (new bands), 55DSL (hip-hop tent), Rumble Teaser
(circusy, comedy type stuff), and a mock building with walls made
of plastic, a sprung dance floor and Bacardi written all over
the roof (ummm….house music!)
About half of the tents
and stages were given over to club nights and record labels to
run for a day, with crews such as secretsundaze, favela chic,
kill all hippies, and keep it unreal left to their own devices
to fill a tent with bands and djs as they see fit, which really
made the whole weekend feel more independent, like a multi-soundsystem
rave rather than a corporate sponsored wallet-fuck.
Add to these main 10
areas a whole load of extra attractions, sideshows and the like
including a hippy ‘Greenfields’ corner, with healthy
food, massages, finger painting and kids crafts (although not
just for kids…), Aerosolics – 5 or 6 makeshift ‘streets’
with blank white walls and a bunch of very talented individuals
spraying amazing art over it all throughout the weekend, and a
New York block party with sofas, chairs, and table tennis. Oh
and of course a funfair. There is really a lot to do here.
The site can be traversed
from one end to the other in about 12 minutes, which helps you
to fit in all the stuff you want to see without spending a lot
of time traipsing around bits of random field in search of it.
With such a compact site it was surprising that there was no sound
clash between the various soundsystems, the layout of speaker
arcs, tents and stage positioning combining to eradicate the problem
of hearing two soundsystems at the same time. Somebody had clearly
put a lot of thought into this issue, and for me it was one of
the things that proved Lovebox to be a first-class event, with
the focus firmly on everybody (performers and punters alike) having
a really good time.
So,
what about the acts? Highlights from Saturday were Candi
Staton’s afternoon show on the main stage
which included a cover of ‘In the Ghetto’ by Elvis,
and a brilliant rendition of the absolute classic house anthem
‘You Got the Love’ with a full band behind her. Also
on the main stage later that evening were DJ
Marky and Patife with their arse shaking Brazilian
Drum & Bass, followed by the Armada themselves with a cracking
good show of hits, chill out tunes and absolute thumpers, including
‘At the River’ which has to be in the top ten of the
Nicest Song Ever list.
Among
the other things I liked on Saturday were Dynamo
Rhythm Ace who played swing-jazz versions of heavy
rock classics like ‘Walk this Way’ and ‘Ace
of Spades’, Shiva Soundsystem’s
no nonsense drum and bass in the RumbleTeaser tent, followed by
Medium Rare, a
cabaret hosted by a granny who rapped about putting your coat
on to the tune of Missy Elliot’s ‘Get your freak on’.
When she introduced a German porn star to the stage, we were disappointed
to find it was a man with a big mustache and silver pants. When
he started grinding against audience members (who didn’t
seem to mind…) going ‘oh yeah baby’ we decided
it was time to go somewhere else. OK, so we ran away.
Also
on Saturday were the amazing Misty’s
Big Adventure, who were the best thing on all
weekend, chucking their musical happy-bombs all over the lucky
crowd who found their way to the Up All Night tent. I fuckin’
love Misty’s. I have no idea why they aren’t the biggest
band in the country. I wish there was a festival where every band
on every stage all day was Misty’s Big Adventure. We would
have to advance the sciences of time travel and teleportation
considerably, but imagine the amount of time that would be saved
changing between bands.
Sunday
was a more relaxed affair, the highlight of which was Jimmy
Cliff, reggae godfather, and his bright yellow
jumpsuit. He played a mix of his own hits and reggae standards,
with some dubby tribal interludes and even a cover of ‘Rivers
of Babylon’ by The Melodians (also covered by Boney M!)
Jamiroquai
followed, who whilst being a great showman and fast on his way
to becoming the British James Brown, didn’t play enough
songs off his first two albums to hold my attention, I prefer
his acid jazz type stuff to his disco stuff, so I found myself
back at Mr Scruff’s Keep it Unreal tent, which had kind
of become base camp for the day, cos Mr
Scruff was DJing all day. Flitting between here
and the Kill All Hippies tent, where we saw the very talented
and lyrically fresh Rumble Strips, made up most of the day.
Spent
some time watching the people learning barn dances at the Caukus
stage which was all good clean fun, and very funny for everyone
involved, including the voyeuristic lurkers like me. Finished
off Sunday watching the wonderfully trashy and noisy young ladies
of Robots in Disguise,
where I met Naboo from Mighty Boosh! A great end to a great weekend.
Other random good stuff I stumbled upon over the weekend were
the worm charmer lady and the wasp tamer of the Insect Circus,
and the dance troupe straight out of the video for ‘Praise
You’. I only hope that they were intentionally funny…All
in all a fantastic event, the ticket price for the whole weekend
was around £60 or £35 a day. This is especially impressive
when you consider that advertising was kept to a bare minimum,
of course there has to be sponsorship of an event like this, but
even so ads were kept discreet and relevant. Good value or what?
Sadly there were a
couple of criticisms that can’t really be helped. Firstly,
I thought and many people I spoke to said that it was all a bit
quiet, probably because Victoria Park is in a fairly residential
area, none of the p.a. systems even the ones in tents had a real
‘punch’ to them. This was especially apparent during
Jimmy Cliff’s set. To me, reggae bass should hit you in
the chest, and it just didn’t.
Secondly, the air quality in Victoria Park is quite poor. I was
told that this is because it’s a bit of a basin, without
that many trees, so dirty air tends to just sit their rather than
circulating or getting cleaned up. The upshot of this is that
you spend the journey home pulling weird black crap out of your
nose. Of course like most Londoners, I eat smog on my cornflakes
instead of milk, but thinking about visitors it can be quite scary
the first time that you blow your nose and see congealed tar.
So,
as for Andy Cato’s hope to capture the spirit of Glasto,
I don’t really know what the spirit of Glasto is. Yes I
went once (before the wall) and had a really good time. If he
means the mad sprawling mass of things to do other than listen
to music, which I thought was one of the things that put Glasto
head and shoulders above anything else as something for everyone,
then Lovebox has got it exactly right.
Also, 15 years ago, there was Glasto, Reading and a few others
that were quite similar and that was pretty much it. Now, and
partly thanks to that wall, every summer in this country there
are so many festival events, all of a really high quality, with
different kinds of music, activity or performance as their focus
that they can only get better and more versatile. They’ll
have to if they want to compete with Lovebox.
by
Gordon Bennet
