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They always lie to us! Okay, my festival is the least cool here, because I’m such a decrepit old fuck, and because pretty much everyone I’m currently listening too also happens to be currently dead.
The venue: In a clearing, in a forest. Just because forests rock, I love forests. And they sound great. And not that many people are going to want to go to my bloody festival anyway, man. So it’s okay.
1. Late afternoon, a sunny day in the forest. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci sit on hand-crafted stools and swing their lovely hair around and play all the folky songs I like off The Blue Trees and Sleep/Holiday, and everyone’s heart just melts. There’s children playing, and everyone smiles, and there’s a lovely peaceful hippy vibe in the air, man. It’s what festivals should be like. In the daytime, that is.
After Gorky’s finish, specially-trained festival nannies discreetly collect up all the children and take them to a creche, away from the noisy grown-up festival that’s about to kick off. And leave a complimentary case of wine in their place. Nobody argues, it’s why the tickets are so fucking expensive, okay?
2. Out from among the trees stagger The Strokes, looking slightly stunned. They’re wearing suit jackets, but have followed my orders and forsworn the usual skinny trousers in favour of Lincoln green tights, displaying their shapely boy-legs, and giving Julian and his chums the appearance of a hipster version of Robin Hood and his merry men. The disconcerting oddness of this sight, combined with the foggy natural acoustics and intimacy of the clearing, makes their set feel like a hazy dream you’re having while dozing on a transatlantic flight. It is, in short, hypnotically fabulous and fabulously incongruous, and halfway through, as the rays of the setting sun poke sharply through the trees, a giant glitterball is lowered and everyone turns red and gold and spills their wine with sudden unrestrained glee. For an encore they even do a cover of ‘Jeffrey goes to Leicester Square’, because I’ve told them I’ll kill their pets if they don’t.
3. So it’s dark now, and everyone’s fagged out. Stagehands hurry to light squillions of candles as people fetch hampers and blankets from their cars. And then Joan Baez appears, just her and her guitar. The atmosphere becomes at once noticeably more middle class and also more revolutionary as everyone sings along with ‘We Shall Overcome’ and ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ and all that. Yeah! We can change the world with the power of song! It’s a dream come true, I love Joan Baez, I’ve always wanted to see her play live and I’m always missing her when she tours. All you Barbelith hipsters can just fuck right off. Hell, for an encore she even sings ‘East Virginia’, just because it’s my festival and I say so.
4. But enough of that. Everyone’s well chilled out, when there’s an almighty blast from a blunderbuss and a pheasant falls from the sky into the crowd. PJ Harvey strides on stage, resplendent in tweeds and monocle, followed by her sinister backing band who are dressed like horny-handed yokels. With an almighty cry of “get up orf moi land!” she dives into a strident, thunderous, utterly aristocratic set that blows everybody’s head, er, orf. It’s just like she used to be, man. There’s a brief shower, but nobody dares stop dancing and the grass cuts up something rotten. By the time milady’s finished, everyone’s soaked and muddy and having a great fucking time.
5. So, make way for Duran Duran! Who look like they’re wondering who to fire for booking this gig. Nick Rhodes gingerly steps round muddy puddles in a lovely pink Armani suit, trying not to get splashed as Simon galumphs around. Sensing the mood, they skip the usual ‘greatest hits’ bollocks to mainly concentrate on the Notorious and Big Thing albums, cause they’re my favourites. It’s muddy and hot and steamy in the woods by now, and halfway through ‘Skin Trade’, Simon cracks and rips off his shirt and performs the rest of the set in the drug-addled ‘style’ of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. He even does a Brandoesque reading from ‘The Wasteland’. At the end, during ‘All She Wants Is’, he leads the mad shamanic chanting as the crowd surge forward and seize John Taylor, stripping him naked and throwing him in the lake to see if he’s a witch. He isn’t, but nobody much cares anyway. For the encore Amanda deCadanet takes his place on bass, and they do a cover of ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’, and it bloody well rocks.
And, anyone who could be bothered to read all of that gets a prize. |
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