V Festival 2013 - Day One

I hope I am not getting too old for music festivals. Or in particular this one. But it used to be a safe bet for all the best indie acts. This year it seemed to be put together by the cast of The Only Way is Essex. Or at least that was its target audience. Beyonce, Olly Murs, Jessie J, the Script, just not like the old days.

The Pigeon Detectives

But at least it started with a genuine indie act, and a reliably energetic one. Second time I had seen them this year. But as I have remarked before, when your act is so much dependent on bouncing around the stage like a lunatic, you have an in-built shelf-life. It didn't help when one of the lead singer's lunges ended up disconnecting his mike, leaving him temporarily speechless.

Conor Maynard

Next up was what I think of as Britain's answer to Justin Bieber, Conor Maynard. But just not so obviously a tosser as the real thing. Nice looking boy with a decent enough voice, he clearly appealed to the teenage Essex girls around me, the braces on their teenage smiles glinting in the sunlight. But for me, well I went after a couple of tunes for a more interesting option, lunch and a carton of noodles. I definitely felt I got the better deal.

However, on later reading of my ridiculously expensive programme I found I was wrong. It expressly stated that Mr Maynard is NOT Britain's answer to Justin Bieber. So that settles that then, its official. Well no, its double bluff. You only have to say that if you are in fact Britain's answer to Justin Bieber, just with fewer Twitter followers.

Eddy Brimson

Faced with such an uninspiring music offering elsewhere I decided to hit the comedy tent "early" meaning getting a good spot well before the act I really wanted to see came on.

So I came in half way through a set by Eddy Brimson - new to me.

Now before I go any further, having watched so much stand-up for over 20 years it got me to thinking how the subject matter has changed, or stayed the same. When I first went to see local comics (as opposed to the big draws you saw on TV) top topics were being drunk, sex (especially oral) and the differences between men and women. Now racism and surprisingly, children, are really regular mainstays, although sex, drunkenness and gender politics are up there too.

So Mr Brimson did a nice slot about NOT having children. How do you sell having kids? "Have you got bored with exotic holidays, spontaneity and going down to the pub with your mates? Well for only £250,000 you could have ... children!"

He was good.

Katherine Ryan

Next up was Canadian comic Katherine Ryan. Touch of deja vu for me as I last saw her in the comedy tent at Reading festival. Not bad actually, but not one to take kids too. She played on being a single mother. "Young guys don't mind me having a kid, but they compliment me like I have been in a crash. "You've got a kid? Whoaa! But you don't look too bad though.""


I liked the line, "My current partner.... - that's how I introduce him to people."

Also liked her comments on the Chelsea player kicking a ball-boy incident last season. We have had "Hug a Hoodie, now lets go for Hoof a Yoof."

Eddie Izzard

Then to the act I had really come to see, the great Eddie Izzard. I have never seen him live, so I thought this was the opportunity. I won't attempt any of his routine as its pretty out there. He gives the very realistic impression of making it all up as he goes along. Real flight of fancy stuff rather than stories of real life slightly exaggerated as is the staple fare of stand-up. I am not naive enough to think its all off the cuff, but by the same token its clearly not a script he has learnt off pat (like some comics on the bill).

Mark Oliver
A word too for the MC linking all this, Mark Oliver, who did a really good job, including filling in during the "interval" As you can imagine, the tent emptied out quite a lot after Eddie Izzard. As far as I could tell, the day was built on 4 batches of 3 comics, each having two supports and then a "headliner." I stayed on for the next two supports.

Andrew Bird

Andrew Bird therefore was bottom of the next trio. A reasonable enough comic though, but nothing to get out of your seat for. (And as we were sitting on the ground, a comfy seat was what I was now craving. Actually standing for hours watching bands is much easier I find than sitting on the ground. I think sitting with your legs crossed was a skill I lost at primary school.)

Shappi Khorsandi

My first time seeing Shappi live too, and I was impressed. Have seen her a number of times on TV. One could add to the debate about how few funny women there are and I am afraid to say its just a fact. But Shappi is one of the best. Good material, but actually its the timing and delivery that beats most of the other women on the circuit.

She also played heavily on being a single mum with two children. Again on attitudes of men to her and sex, but I thought the funniest stuff was just on having kids.

"First born are born out of love. You second borns, that's not love, you are just toys to keep the eldest sibling from being bored. Your parents only had you to keep the older one amused on holiday. And third born? Well, there aren't many photos of you are there? By the third one parents just stick them in a bucket with some barbed wire to chew."

I also like d the bit about her mother and sex. "I'm not saying she is a prude, but she calls sex "Whore's business".

Two Door Cinema Club

I eschewed the headline act of the section, Josh Widdecombe (as I had already seen him live earlier in the year) in order to see Two Door Cinema Club on the Main Stage (whom I had also seen live earlier in the year, but music is not like comedy. You don't mind if you have heard it before - in fact that's what you really want. Two Door are an excellent band, one of my favourites at the  moment, and they didn't disappoint. And having got a half decent spot I thought I would stay here on the Main Stage for the night. Probably not my best decision.

Jessie J

Next up was Jessie J from the Voice. Very, very Essex. Now call me old-fashioned, but coming on stage in earrings that are longer than your pants is not a sign of class. To be fair she does have a very decent voice, but I couldn't help feeling that her all black backing singers and musicians could have done the whole set well without her.

She is also intensely irritating. Her cod philosophy is delivered as if she had just invented existentialism ("Just follow your dreams"), and I didn't feel quite as special and privileged as she intended us to be with the earth shattering news that she was releasing a new album and she was showing us the cover first. Well there you go, a world exclusive. My cup runneth over....

The Script

Then onto the Script, featuring Danny O'Donoghue also of the Voice. See the pattern? Now I have seen the Script a  number of times and they do have some good songs. But when I said music is not like comedy and repetition isn't a problem, actually it is for the patter in between songs. So when Danny asks someone to ring up an ex-boyfriend for him to sing down the phone at as if he was doing it for the first time, of course it grates when you have seen him do it before. The other problem with the band now is that they just ooze insincerity. They are just a little too "Oirish" to take.

Danny O'Donoghue enters the crowd for his "man if the people" section

Beyonce

Which takes on to the headliner, Beyonce. Now this really isn't my scene at all, and she is not to my mind a festival artist at all. She is strictly video or Vegas to me. Dressing up with a bit of dancing. But I thought I would give it a go.

Now it it seems to me that if you are a singer and your greatest feature is your thighs, there is a problem. If you are a German centre-forward I can understand it, but a singer, no. She is to be fair a very attractive woman and does have a voice. My problem is that there is never anything like a tune behind her, and what music there is she just screeches over the top of. And like any diva, she just had to be quarter of an hour late, with us waiting in the rain. And it was a very Essex girls, chavvy crowd around me. Just not a good experience. So after a little while I decided to cut my losses, fought my way out through the crowd and had a look at the back of the second stage

Steve Angelo

This is where I felt I had made a bad choice. The second stage headliner wasn't meant to be headlining at all, but with Beady Eye pulling out, Steve Angelo, late of Swedish House Mafia, moved up the bill. While this DJ dance stuff isn't really my cup of tea either, it was just so much better than Beyonce. A smaller crowd, but a great light show and just nice music, albeit stuff that never seems to get anywhere, which is my problem with it. It is just an endless series of highs and lows, like I guess, taking uppers and downers in endless sequence. But overall a much happier experience than listening to Mrs Carter screeching in her latest outfit.

Sweet Bird of Youth and Leyton Orient v Coventry

First the culture. A bit of Tennessee Williams, Sweet Bird of Youth is playing at the Old Vic. This is a play to take a young person to. Just in order that they can see how quickly they will be past it, and how joyless the future is. The play centres on the relationship between an ageing movie star and the 29 year old gigolo she has picked up. He is the lad who everyone loved as a teenager, a young man with personality and good looks. But since then he has been trying to break through as a star, which he has failed to do because good looks and personality don't necessarily make you a star, and at 29 he is heading into last chance saloon. But his attempt to blackmail the has-been film star and impress his childhood sweetheart fails, and he misses the boat.

Perhaps the most likeable part of the play is the way the protagonists are each trying to exploit the other, the film star trying to buy the beauty of the young man she has picked up to cheer her from the (she thinks) disaster of her come-back film, while the youth is after her money and contacts. And the tragedy is that a mutual appreciation of their roles might have been to their benefit, but dependency is a poor basis for a relationship.

It is actually a rather sobering play, very well acted by Kim Catrall and her young male lead, Seth Numrich. It perhaps doesn't do to contemplate the sad fleeting quality of youth. It can so easily be wasted, and it always disappears in time. Just wished young people valued it more.

Its hard to find your team out of the Cup by mid-August. To be fair Coventry played pretty well at Orient and the £15 I paid was rewarded by plenty of entertainment - City took the lead, then went 2-1 down, then horrendously had our captain sent off, only for us to equalize with a classy Moussa goal. Then, miracle, we were awarded a penalty. At which point it all went wrong, penalty missed and then we conceded a last minute goal. Heartbreaking, but that's football.

A walk through Islington

Islington is of course now a very smart area with astronomically expensive houses. It is walking distance for those working in the City. But it also has the advantage of being one of London's many villages. It does have the feel of a place in itself rather than just a continuous ribbon of development through the Capital. I make no excuse for this section being heavily devoted to houses. It is a very built up area with limited green space. But the Georgian housing stock is very attractive and a lesson to modern architects on how to build high density accommodation that doesn't look Stalinist or built out of Lego.

So here we start with the back streets behind Angel tube station

 

 This little white house on Duncan Terrace was the home of the essayist Charles Lamb - hence the small round plaque

 A little further on one comes to the back of St Mary's Church, the local parish church, with its small shady gardens

A puppet theatre

 Running through North London is the New River, not a river but a channel only 4 feet deep built in the early 17th century to bring fresh water into the City from the Hertfordshire hills. At my end of North London this is mostly above ground and makes a pleasant "riverside" walk. However in Islington in the 19th century it was buried in pipes, allowing more development, but much of it has been converted into a sinuous and narrow stretch of park, as here at Astey's Row.

 Having by now not only wandered through the above, but taken in a bathroom store and the antique market at Camden Passage (a vastly overrated affair), I was rather tempted by the sight of a pub promising a beer garden. This was the Myddleton Arms. And what a nice way to spend an hour in the afternoon,. At the bar I just got talking to a bloke and we went back into the sunny garden where his other half was ensconced. So the three of just chatted happily over our beers, a Pension Lawyer, a Tree Surgeon and a Community Architect. You see why I just like wandering around in London? You meet people. Interesting, different people. And don't listen to all that crap about Londoners being unfriendly. Just stereotyping, largely because people are busy. And besides, most Londoners aren't from London anyway. Its a truly cosmopolitan city - just about everyone lives here. (The architect was Belgian.)

 To the left of the pub the New River pops back above ground along Canonbury Grove, a really lovely, if narrow, stretch of greenery. (I can't quite bring myself to describe it as a park,)

 As you can see, terraced houses line the Grove - not stunning but just pleasing

 At Alwynne Place, although surrounded by the standard terraces, the road is flanked by an odd pair of quirky cottages

 Then at the top of the slight hill one comes to a bit of a surprise, Canonbury Tower. This predates everythng in the area as it was built in the early 16th century as part of a manor house.

 Canonbury Square would be another good example for modern developers. Moderately high storey terraces all around, with attractive communal gardens in the middle. A desirable place to live (as both Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell must have thought as they were among former residents).

 Just round the corner is Compton Terrace, with the Union Chapel (a regular venue for gigs as well as a church) peeking out the middle in a slightly incongruous Victorian Gothic style amongst its severe classical neighbours. This terrace again has a thin stretch of public green space fronting it to make up for the lack of private gardens. Here I broke my journey again with friends who are residents

 Fortified by another beer I risked heading further on into the teeth of the crowd of Arsenal fans heading home from the late afternoon kick off and along Highbury Fields, this time quite a decent size of park, with a rather fine bronze war memorial at the bottom end.

 Facing the park are more nice but unflashy terraces.

 And on the other side, the long stretch of Highbury Terrace, built at the end of the 18th century.

That pretty much completed my walk - I thought I had better double back with the footie crowds coming out and join the throng at Highbury & Islington station.