A trip to Chelmsford for one day of the nice, clean V Festival. Which annoyingly requires travelling out of London for the day!! On arrival at Chelmsford station, there are lots of buses to the site, which spend what seems like ages driving the length of a horrendous queue to the gate. However, when you get up to the gate, there is actually no queue to get in, the half mile line of people is full of sheep who see a queue and join it. Very silly.
The gates opened late, at 12:30, by which time the first bands were already on - why book them if you're not going to let people in in time to actually see them?
We went to the tent to have a look at Protocol, who have had nice things written about them, and have secured some good looking support slots for the autumn. They were not bad, although reminiscent of The Killers or The Bravery with their synth-80s/rock sound. Sounded OK though, although the singer's haircut is appalling, and should rightfully prevent them getting much success until he sorts it out.
A drinking break before the Magic Numbers, who predictably wowed the crowd, and had everybody eating out of their hands within about 2 songs, before their set just descended into a sunny party. A perfect festival band, and so much better than the classic "festival bands" of the past. After they finished, we rushed to catch some of Jet on the main stage - they seemed quite promising when they first started out, but now just seem somewhat cheesy.
Killing time whilst waiting for the Kaiser Chiefs, we went to see The Kooks, who are also having much written about them lately - the singer was going out with Radio-2 friendly Katie Melua, which can't do any harm either. They sounded very promising, and are worth looking out for in future, although their set was so short that it was difficult to judge them too much. Moving into position for the Kaiser Chiefs, we managed (if that is the right word) to catch The Bravery, who were fully expected to sound like a complete comedy act, but actually came across marginally better than that - possibly a reflection of the low expectations rather than how good they really were.
Kaiser Chiefs were excellent, if very arrogant indeed. Almost all of the banter between songs referred to the band in the 3rd person "Kaiser Chiefs are about to play a new song", which is always one of the more irritating things that bands do on stage (see also The Hives). Playing audiences of this size at festivals seems to have inflated their egos, either that or they now have a record company drugs budget to reward them for selling all those albums.
Everything seemed to be running late on the Kaiser Stage (which had been renamed officially by the time they finished), so The Streets set on the main stage was largely missed. Shame, because I'd really wanted to see them, and from what I did catch, I was very impressed. They obviously sound very different indeed live from on record, different but still very good.
So to Oasis, my girlfriend hadn't seen them live since 1994, and after 2 songs she was crying at how old and passenger-like they looked to her. It made her feel old - but taking into account that they have been like this for most of the time since 1994, today was a good performance. The idiot count (always a factor at Oasis gigs) was moderate, but then we were in deepest Essex, and The Streets had just been on, so it could have been worse. A now familiar-ish set, which ticked all the right boxes in terms of greatest hits, and showcased the best of the (pretty good) current album.
After the gig, a run for the shuttle bus and train, then a trip to the Garage in Highbury to round off a good day of music and drinking.
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