Two Door Cinema Club, the Vaccines, James Marriott, the Royston Club and Garage Flower at Crystal Palace Park

Sandwiched between gigs with an audience in tens was this one at Crystal Palace in front of 25,000 on one of the hottest days in the year. I did, of course, arrive early enough to get to the front

A different arrangement to when I last came here. The stage was built up much higher than before, which meant from my angle at the front I couldn't see the back of the stage

The openers had not even been on the bill until the last moment. Unfortunately, on what must have been their biggest ever stage, they started with a technical failure on one of their guitars and so half their set was just the bassist strumming away while a technician got them going. I can't say they blew me away. Bunch of northern lads playing rock. Had a slight sixth form school band feel.

A four piece band. They had a drummer apparently but because of the high stage, I never saw him!

The guitarist whose guitar failed

Next up were the first band people had come to see, and judging by the number of Royston Club t-shirts I had seen on the crowd coming in, a lot of kids had come to see the Royston Club. Not least the three lads standing next to me at the barrier. This was no surprise to me having recently seen their sell out show at the Roundhouse. Excellent show - proper rock band who seem to have become popular through word of mouth. I think I first saw them as a support band and have watched their audiences grow in front of me (or behind me in this case!) They sound great and are interesting lyrically too. 

The one member of the original line up that I hadn't heard of was James Marriott. My three young friends filled me in that he was a you tube influencer that had somehow turned into a rock star, before the lads escaped.

Now there is an interesting dynamic about going to a music festival - the same was to apply to the much lower key one I attended the next day - as opposed to a standard gig with a "name" headliner and unknown supports. At such a standard gig the audience just grows until the headliner comes on. Its the same audience but just joined by more people. At a festival often the audience almost completely changes from one act to the next. There is a core of folk like me in for the long haul, but most people are really only there for one act and are only interested at being at the front for that. 

This phenomenon was particularly stark here. The Royston Club are what I would describe as a lads band. The atmosphere is somewhat akin to a football match, with chants of "Royston, Royston" going up between songs. A large percentage of lads, including the three next to me, evacuated before James Marriott entered,  to be replaced almost entirely by young women, not with boyfriends. I don't wish to be unkind (well I don't care actually) but they did look like the kind of girls who would mostly have a "relationship" online. They could (and did) sing along with every line of every song (until he played a new one), like some religious rite.

He made an observation along the way that someone told him at a festival "only to play the bangers" which is sound advice. But you have to have a banger to play. To my ear, he had none - utterly banal stuff. Totally did not for with the rest of the acts, but maybe the organisers had their commercial heads screwed on the right way. He brought his own audience. And with his departure so went most of the girls.

James Marriott did a lot of posing like this between songs to the adulation of his female fans.

Main support came from the Vaccines. Unlike the aforementioned Mr Marriott, the Vaccines only seem to have bangers. Not quite true as lead singer Justin Young ventured that they hoped their best work was ahead of them. But a new song really didn't go down like the classic tracks from their debut album What did you Expect from the Vaccines? Now fifteen years old. Gosh.

And finally Two Door Cinema Club. Much as I had enjoyed both the Royston Club and the Vaccines, Two Door are just a different class. One can hear that just on the vocals of Alex Trimble. Terrific voice. Justin Young of the Vaccines sounds fine for the Vaccines anthems - strong but what I would describe as monotone. Whereas Alex Trimble has wonderful range. The songs are a step up in quality too. I also quite like that they don't look like a rock band. Alex's ginger beard makes him look more like an American evangelist preacher. Certainly not a sexy look. They trade on what they sound like. 

Above me was the big screen fr the crowd. Not much use to me, except to show crowd scenes, or see the drummer who was out of view

And throughout the gig that had a rotating trio of sign language folk who sand danced and gestured their way through the festival for the aid of anyone hard of hearing

I did allude to how hot it was. I have never attended a festival without a jacket knowing that even if it is hot mid afternoon it will be chilly by late evening when the sun goes down. But not today. It was still warm at night without the need for solar assistance. An awful lot of bare chested lads right to the end. Indeed earlier it was so hot they had a member of security literally hosing down the crowd.

Just behind me, well off to the side, a separate mosh pit developed

Of course one other side effect of this being so close to the longest day, and a 10 pm finish, was that the stage lighting didn't really kick in to impressive mode until pretty much the end

My plan of waiting for the encore and circling back to get a head start on going home was thwarted by there being no encore! It was made worse by there being almost no stewarding either. It was as if they hadn't expected that a crowd of 25,000 would actually have to leave. 

In particular, unlike most festivals I have been to, there was almost no one with a loud hailer directing people anywhere, or attempting to disperse people through different exits. Instead the crowd were "kettled" on numerous occasions with no information (and obviously no access to water despite heat and overcrowding) making the journey home especially and unnecessarily unpleasant. A major black mark for organisers Festival Republic. For most gigs I attend I am normally bombarded with email requests to review them with"How did we do?" headers. Nothing here, which I take to mean, "We know we are shit and cut corners but we don't give a toss - you already paid us."