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 Photo: Justin Edwards
Sunscreen? Check. Water? Check. Fluoro new rave clothing? Check. Home-made shirt printed with misogynist slogans and your itinerary for the day? Check. All right, then, we’re ready to hit Parklife!
Watching a DJ set by Stereo MCs on the Air Stage is an ironic experience, but an enjoyable one. Rob B, who still looks like a dodgy geezer from The Bill, takes a break from the decks to jump around to a history lesson about the importance of Bob Marley to modern music, giving an impression of how amazing a live set from these guys would be. We’ll have to wait till next year. While a few acts take the unfortunately-early slots, arguably Parklife’s earliest must-see act is KIM over on the Fire Stage, better known as Kim Moyes of The Presets. Moyes warms up the afternoon crowd with a banging DJ set full of the kind of electro that his group is famous for. While he does a good line in self-promotion, dropping his own singles System Breakdown and B.T.T.T.T.R.Y., he throws us a few curve-balls, including Nirvana’s Lithium. Up next, Muscles attracts such a crowd to the Fire Stage that some punters literally start climbing trees to see him. After opening with Sweaty (an appropriate number, given the heat of the day), he delves into deep cuts from his album Guns Babes Lemonade, peppered with well-known singles such as One Inch Badge Pin. While his show sometimes resembles karaoke, there’s no doubting that the man is a phenomenon to be reckoned with. The crowd back over at the Air Stage heaves with anticipation as the Scratch Perverts take to the decks. The first few tracks follow each other too quickly to settle on any real rhythm, but the Perverts find their feet and move smoothly from hip hop (notably A Tribe Called Quest’s Can I Kick It) through an eclectic middle section (including Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ By The Way) to finish with drum and bass, with a smattering of world-class scratching “Ready for some pure Aussie hip-hop?” cries MC Ozi Batla from the Air Stage soon after, as the boys swagger on, “No Nirvana remixes here!”. An appreciative cheer provokes The Herd, as always, to skilfully pace crowd and stage with a politically motivated performance including obligatory tracks 77%, I Was Only 19, and High Seas. Ultimately, with hardcore hip hop fans in shirtless, chronic bouncing form up front, we’re told to be “politically vigilant” and “fight for our right to party”. Hang on, what happened to pure Aussie hip hop? Meanwhile Sweden’s The Sounds take to the sun drenched Fire Stage, and are an interesting addition to the Parklife line-up, having previously played numerous punk festivals in the US. Stand out tracks are Tony The Beat and Dance With Me, and their electro infused pop-punk wins over the small crowd in the vicious afternoon sun. More importantly, lead singer Maja Ivarsson could give some of the girls in the crowd a lesson on how to wear hot pants that actually look hot. Freq Nasty and his hair take the Air Stage at 6pm, and it is clear from the first beat that he is going to deliver the breaks set of the day. It is unapologetically chunky and bouncy, and he avoids for the most part the hits that have dominated other acts (although he was unable to resist a repeat of Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name of). MCs Shaun Berry and Afrobeats add presence, but the beats really need no adornment.  Photo: Justin Edwards Back over at the Fire Stage Craze starts out strong, launching into refreshing hip hop beats, his hands blurring with speed. Then he changes things up with some Miami bass full of obnoxious and obvious samples like MC Hammer and Guns N’ Roses. He keeps asking, “Where the ladies at?” Obviously he didn’t see that group leave when he played the sample about punching a hooker in the face and taking your money back.  Photo: Justin Edwards
Although Adam Freeland produces a great festival set at the Fire Stage (competing with Digitalism), tight mixing aside, his track selection at times appears dubious. Rather passé Led Zeppelin track Whole Lotta Love contrasts sharply with standout track Crooked by Evil Nine. Tracks by DJ Q-Bert, DJ Shadow and Unkle are enthusiastically received, and although the crowd grooves energetically for the entirety, only a handful of tracks are fresh from the production rooms.  Photo: Justin Edwards
Pedro Winter, better known as Busy P, is more famous as Daft Punk’s manager and head honcho of über-hip record label Ed Banger than he is as a DJ – but, with sets like this, that should change. After opening with the Beastie Boys’ Intergalactic, he takes the Riverstage rabble through an enjoyable, eclectic set including his own Rainbow Man. Kim Moyes and Andrew Stockdale even assail the stage for a dance-off to The Presets’ Are You The One? In a word: spectacular. MIA performs in glittering sequin-clad glory under a yellow moon to close the Air Stage. She opens with Bamboo Banga and drops XR, Pull Up The People, Sunflowers and Bucky Done Gun with aplomb before block-colour visuals of fragmented flags. It’s great until she gets girls from the audience to dance on stage… and then she evicts them and redeems with the calypso explosion of Paper Planes. Oh, and she does two encores. Encore! Though they pile the stage with eighteen Marshall amps, tonight’s Riverstage headliners – Justice – never quite deliver on the magnificently noisy promise of their debut. Some familiar tunes are twisted almost beyond recognition (D.A.N.C.E), while others (Never Be Alone) sound so pristine they may as well have come direct from the vinyl. Are the French boys playing some sort of elaborate prank, testing the limits of when the kids will and won’t dance? It’s possible. At day’s end fluorotrash spills onto the streets in en masse egress. Lots of fluorotrash, but not many flurotrashed. Success, Parklife! See you next year. JANEWORLD, CHAD PARKHILL, ALASDAIR DUNCAN, TIM RETROT, JODY MACGREGOR, BRIANNA DALTON, FRANCES STEPHENSON
1. Written by emzsluz, on 02-10-2007 22:15 , IP: 220.236.187.112
parklife was the most insane, random and perfect day of my life.
bring on summafieldayze! yewwwwwwwww  |
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