The One Where Kylie Is A Festival Fanatic

Yes people, shock, horror, I went to a popular music festival this past weekend!  Me!  The person least likely to listen to any remotely popular music at all, the person most definitely least likely to go to an outdoor Glastonbury type music festival (and most definitely least likely to do it in the rain) - yes, I was at the O2 Wireless Festival 2008 in Hyde Park.

Why?  Well because on the last day of the festival, my new favourite band (wow, I have a favourite band?!) the Counting Crows were playing - and Erik managed to get us tickets.  Which band?  I hear you possibly ask (or not, I mean, its not like its hard to have heard of more bands than me!).  The Counting Crows...

You see, last year (or the year before, I don't really know), when I was home for Christmas, I bought a load of Concert Band music at Ellaways to bring back to the UK for my school band, because, to be brutally honest, trying to find that sort of thing here is next to impossible.  There's really only Chappells of Bond Street (in Wardour Street, go figure?) and they only have a handful of that awful 'flexible ensemble' stuff.  Anyway.  So, I bought a load of music to bring back to school, and one of the pieces was "Accidentally in Love", by the Counting Crows.  The kids really like the piece, I really like the piece, and that's how I got interested in that band.

So anyway, they were the headline band at the O2 festival on Sunday.  The festival is an annual event, running for some 4 days, with some 4 or so stages for bands / singers / comedians to perform at, and with the usual over-priced fast food joints surrounding the perimeter of the complex.  I arrived about 3.00 and had to queue for a while to get through the silly security measures - I mean, they didn't even scan your bag or anything, the bloke just opened it up and to be honest, was more interested in checking to see if any bottles of coke you've brought in could've been opened already and spiked with alcohol, rather than checking to see if you have a bomb or something.  But once I was in I managed to meet up with Erik and we checked out a few bands.

We saw first of all the Goo Goo Dolls, who I think were seriously over-rated.  Like, they were really rubbish, I didn't like their music at all.  They were on the main stage, so we left and wandered over to the O2/MTV stage where we heard a guy called Ryan Shaw - he was really good.  Actually had more than 3 chords in his music, and the boy could actually sing.  I could be tempted to buy some of his music, it had a real intelligence and class to it...

After this we checked out some of the other tents and stages before settling on the Sandisk stage, where we heard Donavon Frankenreiter - now again, there was some real good music - some proper lyrical lines, clever harmonies - and the bloke playing keyboard played trumpet at the same time too.  The guitarists and other musicians actually took solos for a change, proper, improvised solos - which they executed perfectly, with real musicianship and proper virtuoso playing.  Another one I could be tempted to buy.

We then parted with hard earned cash to get a pie and peas before braving the crush to get into position on the main stage in preparation for the big event.  During this time we caught a bit of Ben Harper - again another fabulous musician, he played this wierd lap guitar - just amazing!

The only downer about all of this was, as the afternoon progressed into evening, and as I had more interaction with other festival goers, I became increasingly aware that everyone there (other than Erik) was Australian.  It was just uncanny.  And not the nice Aussies either - no, at 7pm on a Sunday night, gates having opened at 12noon, these were the Aussies who had been sinking stubbies all afternoon, who could barely string 2 words together (why were they there to hear the main band then - they won't remember it?) - you know, the sorts of Aussies who rather than play dance around the handbags like they do at some clubs, were playing dance around the pile of stubbies.  In fact one bloke, so considerate he was, decided it would be a good idea to chuck semi-full bottles of beer up into the air, spraying the people below.  Fortunately the bottle was made of plastic!

Dancing around the stubbies... a new craze...

And then there was the bloke next to me who had absolutely no manners at all - who waited til the main act started singing and then proceeded to shout down his phone every 5 minutes at his mate - "We're about 15 metres in front of the mixing desk, right in front of the main stage" - like his mate had a snowflakes' chance in hell of trying to meet up with him in that throng!  What a git...  Then there was the Aussie (or actually, I think this bloke might've been a Saffa) who decided to dance ecstatically to the music, in a semi-trance, flinging his head far, far back in time (well, he thought it was in time) to the music, and fair taking me out in the process as I had the unfortunate pleasure of standing behind him!

But finally, the main event - the Counting Crows!  And suddenly all of that other unpleasantness of being crammed up in the crowd was all worth it... they were just awesome!  Such gorgeous harmonies, lyrical melodies, so musical... the pianist was just incredible, and the lead singer was such an entertainer - what a fabulous experience it was, I will never forget it... the only downer was they never sang my absolute favourite song, Accidentally in Love - but they did do Big Yellow Taxi, Washington Square and Colourblind...and many others...

Anyway, I didn't have my video camera there, just the stills one - but here's a video I found of part of the performance on youtube...

Boy am I glad I'm not on the clean up!  What a mess...