Oh dear. One of the disadvantages of attending a show as part of a larger weekend is that I have less time to reflect, and in this particular case I have spectacularly failed to make any detailed notes at all and now I find myself a full seven weeks later obliged to write up a review. Not obliged by any kind of law of course, but by the pride of knowing I've made the effort of documenting every single gig and festival I've ever attended and that I wasn't going to break that record now. Perhaps it's for the best though as it may enable me to keep this relatively short and to the point, but I do wonder about all the small details that can never now be recalled or documented, although the many photos I took are certainly a helpful substitute. I've even broken the chronological habit of a lifetime by writing this review after Editors and The Stone Roses - both of which I'd attended later in June - but as you can see I did manage to review those in ludicrous detail. It was largely a desire to sort my photos out first that slowed me down, and also that I spent three days in London after this and simply had no opportunity to draft any notes. Also I'd somewhat rashly booked a holiday in Portugal for late August which required a lot of planning and therefore perhaps it's quite impressive that the only thing I failed to do was write this review!
I don't think I'd even heard of Field Day before this but apparently it was the sixth year and with a price tag of just £45 for a day of music was clearly a bargain. I'd already set my heart on travelling down to London for the Diamond Jubilee to see The Queen and once I realised this one-day festival fitted neatly into the gap in our itinerary it was hard to resist. The opportunity to see Franz Ferdinand and The Vaccines coupled with some achingly cool and downright promising bands I didn't particularly know - including Blood Orange, Metronomy, Spector and Tortoise - and to provide a helpful substitute for a full-on festival experience looked rather good. In fact my first thought was to see Fatboy Slim playing a show in Brighton, but once it became clear that getting a reasonably priced hotel down south or travelling back to London on the night would be impractical the idea lost its allure. I'm distinctly unimpressed by Norman Cook's obsession with only ever playing Brighton or London and he could do well to learn that the country in fact extends north of Watford! An intriguing alternative was to see the Derby at Epsom which The Queen was attending, but I guess we could do that any year and it could never live up to watching it on the television anyway. Matt and I were reasonably slow in committing and buying tickets but shockingly the event never seemed to sell out, which is strange considering the high population of London and the credibility of the line-up. I guess Franz Ferdinand just don't have the pulling power that, say, The Killers would have had, but I'd had thought that "the kids" and their knowledge of the up and coming bands would have been enough to sell it out anyway?
On the Wednesday night - just three days before the festival - I spent the evening in Stafford with my brother watching the Olympic torch, which was a fantastic community event and was especially welcome considering the torch's arrival in Wolverhampton had been cruelly scheduled to clash with The Stone Roses concert on June 30th. We followed this up with an expensive Thai meal and a viewing of Men In Black 3 so I'm not quite sure how I found the time to pack and come down to London on the Friday night. If I recall at this point I was on top of everything and had already put an itinerary together though. I endured a very busy day at work and avoided some insane pressure to stay late to sort out a problem that simply wasn't urgent and would have taken days of effort anyway and was relieved to get on the train to commence my journey south. After arriving in London and meeting up with Matt we enjoyed a massive Mexican meal with a rare Brazilian beer - so rare I can't remember what it's called now - and discussed the plan for the days ahead. As it was the Diamond Jubilee weekend we'd been granted an extra bank holiday, providing us with a four day break to enjoy. I woke up at 7:30am in some pain after managing to pull my leg but I believe I made a full recovery and didn't experience any further discomfort that day. We then grabbed a typically large breakfast before heading out reasonably early, being aware of the 11:30am start time and not having a clue what order the bands would be playing in.
Since we'd been to Victoria Park for the Lovebox festival in 2008 we were quite confident that we could figure out how to get there and we had no bad memories of travelling home afterwards either. In hindsight I should have referred back to my old review to refresh my memory but the defining disappointment back then had been the outrageous wait outside for them to open the gates, which resulted in Alphabeat playing to an empty stage when I wanted to be in there enjoying their show! We therefore were quite happy to arrive a bit later and it did in fact state on the ticket that the start time was subject to licence so maybe it was some health and safety jobsworth who'd delayed the show last time, and a council show-scheduling jobsworth who'd demanded that Alphabeat play on time regardless! The forecast was for rain later on in the day - continuing the dire weather we'd experienced in 2012 which had largely left me housebound - and there was certainly no sign of any sun in the morning, but I'm quite happy with cloud and a bit of wind as it keeps the sunstroke away. We travelled to Victoria station then along the District line, which took a while but worked out for us. I'd checked absolutely everywhere beforehand to find the running order but it seemed to be subject to some government cover-up to make us buy a programme inside, and I wasn't impressed that some girls on the train had magically managed to obtain one in advance! We resisted the temptation to check out the Olympic Park - which was quite close - and purchased a 500ml bottle of water from a newsagents as the information clearly stated that a "sealed bottle of less than one litre" was permitted.
No doubt they were stealing 1 litre bottles and anything that had been opened already to trick anyone who hadn't followed the rules to the letter, but I wouldn't have been surprised if they were confiscating everything so it was best to be on the safe side and keep it hidden. Nevertheless the entrance was both already open and quiet and we encountered no problems in getting inside, whereupon I quickly purchasing a running order programme to place around my neck, for £6 I believe. Unusually we weren't offered any kind of wristband either. Strangely enough I never saw any larger programme, or indeed any t-shirt vendors - dodgy or otherwise - at all, but it was nice to have something both practical and portable to carry with me and keep as a memento. Our research had identified that a free newspaper was to be distributed which included the running order and we picked this up next, being surprised to find it was actually a special copy of The Independent. We passed the one and only public banner displaying the full running order and headed for a quiet corner, spotting what looked to be a cardboard cow with milkable teats (!) and a large Pimm's bus, but at this time the music had yet to start and the place was extremely quiet. I've got to give credit where it's due though, as it was awesome that outside each stage was the running order explaining exactly what time each band was due to be on, but seeing as they were giving us the information for free inside it made no sense that they didn't just publish it on the website in advance like they should have done?
As a result of this we had to sit down for a good ten minutes - in dry but chilly and breezy conditions - and figure out exactly who we wanted to see. I had made a comprehensive list of bands after checking out their profiles on the Field Day website and trying to determine which groups either looked good or had a "buzz" about them and carefully cross-referenced this with the line-up, but the organisers clearly hadn't thought it through as well as we had. The most shocking decision was that The Vaccines had been shoved onto the second stage as headliners and were due to finish around when Franz Ferdinand would be taking to the main stage, which could only cause a stampede and meant that we'd have to choose between them or sacrifice a good position to watch both. Also I was shocked to see that the fuck-awful Beirut were the second headliners and not too impressed either that Spector were timed to clash with Metronomy, but apart from this I managed to map out the strongest possible plan for the day, with a late afternoon lull leaving a helpful gap for us to grab some food and the chance for us to see as many new bands as we could, even though several smaller acts of interest were also timed to clash with each other. With seven stages and a lot of creditable names I guess some clashes are inevitable, but the decision to not just put The Vaccines on the main stage before Franz was sheer stupidity, and I hope someone has since been fired for making that call!
In retrospect it would have been nice to have walked around the park outside the sealed-off festival area, which seemed pretty much the same grounds which had been occupied for Lovebox, and the largest annoyance was to see an impressive fountain peeping over the top of the fence which we wouldn't get the opportunity to see! We sat near a bandstand which was seemingly occupied by hippies, being draped with a banner stating "kill a cat, save a bird." Considering that cats are a higher order of animal than birds and because of a little known thing called the food chain I can't say I agree with that sentiment. The most visible difference with the park compared to Lovebox 2008 was that there was no big wheel at all, which was a shame as I'd been looking forwards to taking some photos of the site from a higher vantage point. Two rides that had survived from last time were the swing carousel and waltzers, which proved particularly photogenic, but our appetite for the fairground was pretty much nonexistent anyway. Hmmm it's interesting isn't it, as I seem to remember more detail than I'd expected to before I started writing this, but now I've reached the point of the show where I have to talk about the music - which perhaps is the important part - my grasp of detail is about to go sharply downhill. Sadly as I didn't really know the bands or their songs beforehand anyway it does make it harder to talk about anybody in depth.
After painstakingly figuring out who to see I immediately strayed from the itinerary upon passing the Village Mentality Stage and noticing that a band were onstage. I suggested we check them out and I only found out afterwards that it was Revere who were our first band of the day. The crowd was sparse and we only stayed for a song or so before moving on having failed to take a decent photo. They came across as loud and energetic but we weren't there long enough to notice any quality. All the stages were scheduled to start at midday so suddenly there was much more to see and do. We passed a random brass band who were crammed into a tiny tent and presumably would be providing some high-brow music later on but we never noticed them again as our intention was to reach the main stage and to catch some of Last Dinosaurs. It was quite a walk as the main stage was on the other side of the site and wasn't particularly fulfilling as Dinosaurs just weren't very good. If I recall their music was acceptable but accompanied by terrible singing, although it was nice to see that the sound system was working well, as indeed it was for the entire day. The most memorable part of their show was the fact that two guys towards the front were dressed in bright green dinosaur outfits, but whether that was just a coincidence I couldn't say.
What we really needed was a quality act to get us into the spirit a bit more and I had high hopes for Friends, seeing as they were named after The Beach Boys album. They were playing the Shacklewell Arms stage, which was sponsored by a pub I'd never heard of. We arrived in good time and it was already quite busy and their soundcheck proved the most entertaining part of the day so far. It was quite stimulating trying to figure out who were the roadies and who was in the band and more members kept appearing before the band made a last minute sex change as two girls emerged from nowhere and they started to play. It's quite hard to describe their style after the event but they generally dripped with Brooklyn coolness. The drummer stood up throughout and their sound had an engaging, refreshing vibe and went down extremely well. As someone had decided to place the main tent pole slap bang in the middle of the bright blue stage where the singer should be they had to work around that, unable to resist the urge to tease us with pole dancing imagery. Also the singer went down into the crowd at one point to finish a song amongst us and it emerged that the photographers pit was packed as they all turned their cameras towards us to capture the moment. Their set was short but very sweet and I hope very much to hear more from them.
I've always been intrigued by Dev Hynes, even if I have nothing to show for it except one Test Icicles song and one Lightspeed Champion album I'd barely heard, so the second stage was the next destination. Firstly we passed the main stage on the way and caught a song or two by Savages, who were an all-female group dressed in black with a very dynamic and exciting sound. It would have been nice to stay longer as the main stage wouldn't see anyone else as good until the Franz finale but I had a feeling that Dev's latest project Blood Orange was the place to be. After a brief wait he came onstage completely alone to play Champagne Coast, which was built on the very seductive lyric of "come into my bedroom, come into my bedroom." It was soulful music as it should be and also raised a smile and was certainly the catchiest song we didn't already know of the whole day. After this great start the style seemed to change but remained compelling, especially when Dev indulged in guitar solos which were utterly demented and worked completely against the track but just made our jaws drop. Apart from a brief cameo appearance from a bassist - who we couldn't hear anyway - it was just him and some pre-recorded tracks from his onstage Mac and I was sufficiently impressed to record two short videos. Dev was dressed entirely in black - including baseball cap - and mixed it up a bit but nothing quite lived up to the opening track and we lost interest during the bits when he wasn't playing crazy guitar solos. Nevertheless, for an entirely new project, Blood Orange were very impressive and deserved to be playing to a much larger audience.
SETLIST Champagne Coast/Sutphin Boulevard/Bad Girls/I'm Sorry We Lied/Forget It/Dinner/Telling (What's Wrong With Me?)
As a result of seeing Blood Orange in his entirety we'd missed Citizens! on the Shacklewell Arms stage but next up was the very short walk to the main stage to wait for Perth band Pond to come on. A recurring theme of Field Day was acceptable bands with terrible singers and nobody encapsulated this better than Pond, who were fronted by a girl wearing a bobble hat and Kiss t-shirt who may have been visually striking but looked a mess and couldn't sing at all. I was shocked to learn afterwards that the singer was actually a guy and the band certainly looked impressive - in particular in the large hair department - but the singing completely put me off. It's very strange as NME had since started to hype them up as this crazy exciting band and maybe it would make more sense indoors in front of a committed crowd but they certainly didn't work here. It's also a shame that we missed out on Crocodiles as I'm sure they would have been better. We were therefore quick to head back to the second stage - thereby missing Outfit, yet another promising group on the Shacklewell Arms stage - to watch the vast bulk of Errors. They were completely instrumental and keyboard-based and I found them quite hard to engage with as their songs were long and repetitive, but the bearded singer with glasses was quite likeable and Matt was enjoying it so we stayed put. They were probably the best thing going anyway, although it's a shame to report that the quality dipped dramatically for the next three hours after Friends and Blood Orange had lived up to all expectations.
As soon as Errors finished we headed back outside to the main stage to see Liars come on. I don't know where I'd got the idea that they'd be worth seeing, but clearly those people are liars! By this time the sun had defied all expectations by coming out to shine so we headed back to stand underneath the shadow generated by the mixing desk, which was empty as everybody else seems to enjoy getting sunburned! Liars were another band ruined by bad singing and their songs seemed drony and lifeless. We kept wondering if they'd burst to life and around the third song they did indeed pick up the tempo but the singing was just so awful that we had to move on. It's encouraging that NME agreed with us as they also said Liars lost the crowd by playing boring songs, but I do wonder if there's another side to them we never got to see? We agreed to venture over to the Village Mentality stage to watch Django Django and realised that the site had suddenly filled up. It was insane as we couldn't get anywhere near the stage and had to watch the band from across the footpath far outside, and clearly the kids knew something that we didn't! It would be wrong to judge them from such a poor position and I sheltered under a tree from the unexpected sun, which made it all the more galling when I got home and found those few seconds of exposure had given me insane sunburn! We'd also missed Tim Burgess DJing - although I have a very vague feeling I may have seen him doing it before - and decided that now would be the best time for some food. I grabbed some fish and chips and we decided to shelter in the Bugged Out Stage, which was full of massive overhanging white balloons and according to our schedule was graced by Blawan DJ. It seemed particularly limp and it was quite sad to watch early afternoon ravers trying to "get into it" so as soon as I'd eaten up we moved on.
Now that Django Django had finished there was an exodus from the tent and once we got through the smokers congregating outside we managed to secure a reasonable spot inside. The public smoking ban certainly applied to the tents, although one or two people did disregard the rules. As we were still in the designated eating part of the day and I didn't want to wander around in the sun we decided to hang around and wait for Afrocubism to come onstage. They were a collective of African musicians wearing traditional clothing who started their set late after fannying around on stage. By this time the arena was really filling up, boxing us in, and I was also losing my patience and wanting to move on again. Once they started playing their music seemed to be quiet background fare and everyone seemed to give it a much warmer reception than it deserved. I quickly decided that I didn't want to be caught in an overly enthusiastic crowd for a mediocre band and it was best for us to make an exit while we still could, although it was still a squeeze! We then headed back to the main stage where Andrew Bird was performing but presumably didn't stay very long as I have no memory whatsoever of his performance. His photo suggests that he was playing a violin. I was not at all impressed by the continued blue skies so we quickly continued back indoors to the second stage where Kindness were finishing up. Again I have practically no recollection of their set, but it's funny how I always end up seeing far more bands than I ever intend to, and even more extraordinary that we managed to see every single act who graced the main stage with the exception of the fuck-awful Beirut, but as I'd seen them before I knew exactly what I was missing! We took some time to have a sit down and I took a few photos of the mess and bottles that were lying around, which is pretty much to be expected it must be said.
The reason I'd been keen to get back to the second stage was because I predicted that the tent would be absolutely rammed for Spector, and I was utterly amazed and disappointed that it didn't fill up at all. Perhaps it just goes to show that the NME aren't the taste masters you'd expect them to be, but it does make me wonder where Django Django had got their popularity from. Is there some massive cultural radar I know absolutely nothing about? We stood on the left and I was impressed to spot Dev Hynes in the crowd - watching the very stage he'd earlier graced - and he certainly seemed to enjoy them. The songs were pleasant but would have made far more sense if I'd had known them, but their greatest strength was the amazing personality of their singer Fred. He dedicated one song to the girls out there - or to anybody who knows a girl - and gave an anecdote about the history of the festival, which finished with a declaration that we were all now here, having a field day. Fred was clearly the one guy who we'd want to go out with for a drink and hang around with and his charisma was certainly the band's strongest point, although they were also very sharply dressed apart from the scruffy keyboardist! He also made reference to Grimes and I hear she played to a massive crowd, so presumably that's where everybody else was! I knew though that Grimes was unlikely to be my cup of tea and, although I was quite happy to stay, I felt we'd heard enough to judge Spector and I was very keen to find out what Metronomy were like.
SETLIST What You Wanted/Grey Shirt And Tie/Friday Night, Don't Ever Let It End/Twenty Nothing/Celestine/Lay Low/Chevy Thunder/Never Fade Away
I'd presumed that everybody would be watching Metronomy but we had little trouble securing a reasonable position and didn't stay long. In fact I knew no songs and they were far jauntier and less anthemic than I'd anticipated, although they deserve praise for wearing some very fetching colour-coordinated trousers! Presumably the park was now close to capacity and everybody was over on the other side either watching Grimes or grabbing some food, and it was thinking of this that drove me to move quickly on to secure a top spot for Tortoise. Presumably everybody was moving the opposite way though as we arrived back at the Village Mentality Stage - where Grimes had just finished - to find it all very quiet! I'd had thought that Tortoise would have been a massive draw but apparently they weren't! As I was conscious that The Vaccines would surely be playing to a huge crowd we hung around the back to enable us to make a quick exit and waited patiently for Tortoise to come onstage. They are a band I've been eternally fascinated by since I saw them on an NME Best Of list way back in 1998, which is doubly ridiculous as I'd never, ever heard a single song in the intervening 14 years. Nevertheless I had a feeling I'd enjoy them and once they took to the stage I was proved right, but they certainly weren't what I was expecting. I'd presumed it would be dynamic electronica music but the Tortoise set-up was in fact grounded by two drummers on stage facing each other and playing in time. I have absolutely no idea how it could work on record but their sheer talent in playing together was breathtaking and went against all stereotypes of drum solos being boring. I shot one video of the event and we were quite happily engrossed for the bulk of the set. My mind was still partly on The Vaccines though as surely, surely everybody else would be going to see them rather than Beirut?
We therefore dragged ourselves away from Tortoise a few songs before the end - we'd got the gist anyway - with the intention of dashing back to the second stage, but I allowed myself the momentary distraction of a brief glimpse of The Men on the Shacklewell Arms Stage. Sadly we'd missed out on Toy - who were particularly highly rated - but had now seen acts on five out of the seven stages. Considering the ones we omitted were the Bleed/Lanzarote Stage and Red Bull Academy, both of which seemed to be DJ based, I don't see it as any great loss. We then continued towards The Vaccines, again stopping to see a crazy hay-related rave which seemed to be taking place in an tightly enclosed space, where everyone was randomly chucking hay at each other. The good thing about arriving at the second stage so early was that we got to see the tail end of Sleigh Bells, who were absolutely not the delicate and quiet band their name may suggest. In fact they were playing to an absolutely massive crowd and were clearly going down an utter storm, showcasing the kind of loud and exciting music and awesome lightshow you'd think would be reserved for headliners. I shot a video and the only regret was that we hadn't arrived slightly earlier as this was clearly an event. Once Sleigh Bells finished I was completely baffled to see another massive exodus so we made a trip to the nearby toilets before heading inside. Throughout the afternoon I'd been drinking a lot of water - and then refilling my bottle using the free taps - and my system had not been wasting any time in processing it, which probably wasn't the best practice considering I'd have to stand around waiting for a good few hours tomorrow for the barge pageant, but thankfully I managed to get a grip from this point onwards!
But really, I just don't get it, 2012 proved a fucking dire time for new music and although I accept they're nothing compared to my heroes I'd argue that in this day and age The Vaccines are the equivalent of The Beatles. There just isn't anybody new who can touch them, and surely that hype would translate to real-life popularity? Therefore I just can't get my head around why the tent wasn't rammed and where everybody else was, especially considering how busy everywhere had got earlier. It simply didn't add up, maybe everybody had decided to go home early?! The challenge was in seeing and enjoying The Vaccines whilst still getting out to secure a prime spot for Franz Ferdinand - which seemed an especially tall order as presumably if the crowd aren't here they must have been at the main stage? To enable a smooth exit we stayed close to the back and the band burst onstage with new single No Hope, which went over my head as I didn't know it. They followed this with the stunning Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra) and I whipped my camera out to shoot a video but only captured half as much as I thought as I didn't press the right button! This was followed by a tune I didn't know - Tiger Blood - and I came to the realisation that Wreckin' Bar is their best song and that now they'd dispensed all 100 seconds of it I simply wasn't bothered anymore. We therefore left the tent and made a final bathroom stop while remaining within earshot, but as no more hits were forthcoming we decided to make our way to the main stage and secure our spot for Franz Ferdinand. Yes, I would have loved to have heard Nørgaard, but in the event they didn't play it until the end anyway, and I certainly didn't want to have a lame position for the main draw of the evening. Also Matt didn't seem to like them much - which is strange as I don't see how anyone could fail to be moved by Wreckin' Bar - so we headed back, scratching our heads trying to figure out where everybody else was.
SETLIST No Hope/Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)/Tiger Blood/A Lack Of Understanding/Wetsuit/Teenage Icon/Under Your Thumb/Post Break-Up Sex/All In White/Wolf Pack/Blow It Up/If You Wanna/Bad Mood/Nørgaard
In fact Huw Stephens was now DJing onstage but we barely registered anything he played, which was a strange contrast considering his amazing work back at Reading 2006. I did take a recognisable photo though. We headed in and - this is the point where it really made no sense - encountered no trouble whatsoever in securing an excellent position slightly to the right. Now seriously, where the fuck was everyone?? Half of the other stages - including The Vaccines stage - were even closing early, presumably on the basis that they couldn't compete with Franz, so I just can't figure it out. Perhaps I should stop asking why and just be grateful that we'd claimed an outstanding position for Franz Ferdinand, and although it made me wish I'd stayed later for The Vaccines I have a feeling we'd then have had to stand further back and would ultimately have been the worse off for it. A large video screen had been set up in the middle of the stage and rather excellently featured the classic BBC test card. I don't need to explain what I mean any further as I've posted a photo of it above. The band were due onstage at 9:50pm - which was rather late considering - and took some time to set up, and after a while they started messing around with the video screen picture which was a bit foolish as it had been perfect to begin with anyway! As I've briefly mentioned above, Franz Ferdinand are a strange choice of headliners as they're clearly past the peak of their popularity and even I had doubts if they were good enough to make this day out worth it. Nevertheless they were certainly the biggest band of the evening and ultimately had enough hits and charisma to pull it off.
For my part this was the third time I'd seen them - firstly headlining Reading 2006 and then playing the shitty Birmingham Academy - and Franz Ferdinand for me are a rare example of a band who are so crowd-pleasing that they bombard you with hits and then leave you almost wanting it to finish as you can't think of anything else you'd want to hear. They came onstage in a decidedly retro manner to open with Michael, followed by the excellent Tell Her Tonight which I shot a video of. The lighting and sound was outstanding, the band were on form and clearly they still weren't adverse to playing their hits. After a new song - Right Thoughts - they sent the show into the stratosphere and got us moshing with Do You Want To, although sadly it lacked the cry of "do you want to!" at the outset which had made the Reading 2006 rendition so definitive. I shot my second and final video and have narrowly decided to award it the title of song of the day, but around this time the heavens had opened. I captured a few cool shots of the lights piercing the rain but it just got wetter and wetter and it simply was no longer sensible to keep the camera out. My hood went up but by the end everybody was drenched from head to toe. If you're judging from the length of the review I may have made a mockery of my earlier claim at not remembering many details but nevertheless it's true which is why I now struggle to give much detail. I'd love to know what I've missed out, or perhaps the band simply performed the hits with no fuss as they should do. At one point their video screen seemingly crashed - showing the desktop and an error message - before reverting to a swirling effect. I thought the band soldiered on through issues but Matt suggested that it had been done deliberately. Either way though, it was highly amusing.
The hits continued with No You Girls, The Dark Of The Matinee and a deliciously performed rendition of Walk Away with smart change of tempo, and the most notable new tune was Fresh Strawberries, which is a most unusual song title and inevitably featured video imagery of strawberries. Also I hear they played a snippet of I Feel Love in tribute to the late Donna Summer, but I'm afraid to say I didn't notice. One frustration was a young couple who oblivious to all around them were snogging non-stop for a good 30 minutes and kept bumping into everyone, and the temptation to push them over into a pool of mud was quite ginormous. Franz Ferdinand though weren't holding back and Take Me Out was played relatively early, leading to another moshpit and reminded me that this song was perhaps the definitive fusion of pop and "proper" music of the noughties, and I simply don't see how anybody could want to listen to chart pap over a tune of its quality. The band have a tendency to play Jacqueline just when you've forgotten all about it and they managed to surprise me with it for a third time, before leading into the atmospheric Outsiders and the grand finale of This Fire, which was especially ironic as any fire under these weather conditions would be firmly under control! There was no encore but there really was no need or desire for it, as Franz had clearly been trying to honour an 11pm curfew and managed to jam everything we could possibly want from a headline set into a super-tight 70 minute window. As far as omissions were concerned, they didn't play Darts Of Pleasure, Eleanor Put Your Boots On, I'm Your Villain or Turn It On, but considering their super-short slot and the fact they're now approaching their fourth album and are entitled to throw a few lesser songs in they did exceptionally well. Indeed, all the very best songs were present and correct. The guys united onstage for a bow and, after a super-tight, super-efficient and super-professional setlist they'd more than done their bit to ensure that Field Day had absolutely been the right choice for us.
SETLIST Michael/Tell Her Tonight/Right Thoughts/Do You Want To/No You Girls/Brief Encounters/Can't Stop Feeling/The Dark Of The Matinee/Walk Away/Fresh Strawberries/Take Me Out/Ulysses/Trees & Animals/Jacqueline/Outsiders/This Fire
We headed out of the arena relatively smoothly until it came time to cross a road where the traffic was unfairly given equal priority to us. Surely everybody knew a festival was taking place so should just have steered clear of the area? In fact we got back by midnight which was very impressive, and the bottleneck created by the road and crowd control did an excellent job of thinning everybody out before we filtered into Mile End tube station. As we'd been soaked to the skin and a full day of music is inevitably draining I went straight to sleep making no notes whatsoever, and I was also very conscious that Sunday was going to be a busy day as well. Before heading to London I'd failed to take mud into consideration and had chosen to wear much nicer shoes than I probably should have done, and frustratingly the soles had come loose as a result. However I'd impressively avoided catching cold and was ready to embrace everything that London could throw at me. Usually I start off my reviews by explaining any build-up to the show in ridiculous detail but in this case most of the weekend was still to come. Arguably I should draw this to a close here but I feel compelled to continue the tale, although I'll try and keep it a bit briefer since I've already told the real story.
On Sunday we woke up reasonably early, had breakfast at Spoons and walked towards Battersea Bridge for the Thames Diamond Jubilee Barge Pageant. Despite arriving a good four hours early it was already starting to get a bit busy and we secured the first spot we could get at the front where we had a clear view of Battersea Bridge. As the hour approached a friendly middle-aged lady sneakily pushed in between us and doubts set in our minds once we started talking to others and realised that in fact the bloody Royal Barge was docked down river from us. We were distinctly unimpressed as all the advertising had clearly stated that the pageant was to start at Battersea Bridge, and when The Queen with Prince Phillip appeared in the Royal Yacht Britannia launch and came through Battersea Bridge we were doubly miffed when their boat quickly zoomed off to the other side of the river away from us! Keeping our spirits up after this debacle was not easy but we managed it, eventually seeing Boris Johnson and Clare Balding later on in the pageant, and after studying my photos afterwards I realised I'd snapped far away images of Prince Charles, Camilla and Kate as well. The rest of the procession was impressive - although wasn't quite as laden with music as we'd been promised - but towards the end the heaven's opened and it was a relief to head back. Also if we'd had stood near Tower Bridge practically the entire pageant would have been soaked by the rain, rather than just the end. We finished off Sunday by heading into central London amid more rain to visit the Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate Modern, which was much better than expected as his works seem to make far more sense when viewed all together, plus it was nice to see the diamond encrusted skull which was only on display in June. We finished the day with a Chinese all you can eat meal in a deserted restaurant and were not too impressed to have been soaked to the skin two days in a row.
On the Monday we accepted that the weather was likely to be lame and that the best bet would be to head to Greenwich, especially because it would be even busier once the Olympics were on. The original plan had been to visit Southend but that wouldn't have been much fun in the rain. We meant to catch an open top boat ride but caught a Thames Clipper by mistake yet were fortune enough to be approaching Tower Bridge as it opened, which was quite amusing as everyone became full-on tourists and we smashed open the fire escape to take some decent shots on the deck. We also got to see the Avenue Of Sail - the ships that had been too large to take part in the pageant - and had a brief sighting of Gloriana again, but there was no further sighting of the Royal Barge sadly. We'd checked Google carefully but absolutely nowhere told us where it was docked. Our main plan had been to see the Cutty Sark and we achieved this but the queues were unbelievable, and we followed this up by visiting the closest pub and I paid for a rather expensive round - around £4.30 for a simple Pilsner Urquell! By this point it had started to rain again and we made our way to the National Maritime Museum to see a special exhibition on previous river pageants and also had a brief look around the museum. Quite a few people had had the same idea as us of going to Greenwich but considering it was the day after a large boat pageant it certainly could have been a lot worse. Outside the museum I saw the awesome ship in a bottle which had previously been on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square before we headed deeper into Greenwich to the Old Royal Naval College. Of course I was familiar with the building but it was a nice added bonus to find a stunning Painted Hall inside one tower and a chapel in the other, all for free and with no arbitrary photography restrictions. Behind the Queen's House was a temporary Olympics venue and we decided to now walk down the river towards the Millennium Dome. We reached the Thames Barrier and managed to glimpse a far-away shot of the Orbit Tower before checking out the awesome new cable cars and the roof walk over the Dome. The cable cars were being tested but were sadly a few weeks away from being opened and by this time Matt was starting to feel ill so we headed back and caught Prometheus 2-D at the cinema after a few nice beers.
Finally on the Tuesday I was determined to make up for the disappointment of not getting any proper photos of the Royal Family and so set out early by myself and secured a prime space by The Cenotaph. Her Majesty was firstly heading to Paul's Cathedral - and the service was played over a loudspeaker for us - but everyone passed us quickly by car afterwards before heading back in a carriage procession at 2:20pm. I got some excellent photos and it was amazing to think I'd seen The Queen, Prince Charles, Camilla, Prince William, Prince Harry and Kate in quick succession! The whole build-up and sense of excitement made it all worthwhile - although it was a shame that Prince Phillip was ill and that they whizzed past us much faster than expected - and afterwards I took some photos of the build-up to a horse bolting and throwing its rider off, which was a very exciting moment but was ignored by most of the media as they were obsessing over what was going on around The Mall. I even sent the photos I'd taken to the BBC thinking they'd be eternally grateful and was distinctly unimpressed to be rudely ignored. Speaking of the BBC we also saw Fiona Bruce walking past us in the build-up, but I was too slow in thinking of the heckle of God Save Fiona Bruce! I then walked back to Waterloo as quickly as I could and made my way home, in fact enjoying the quietest train back I'd ever been on! There was a lot of whining about transport chaos but unless you went to the most obvious station at the most predictable time it was absolutely fine! But anyway, my gist is that it was a rather exciting weekend, but as good as Field Day 2012 may have been it is inevitable that it would get overshadowed, especially considering I had The Stone Roses still to come!
SONG OF THE DAY: Franz Ferdinand - Do You Want To
London Victoria Park
2nd June 2012
£45.00
