Morrissey, Beck, The Courteeners, Black Kids, Dirty Pretty Things, Lightspeed Champion - Wireless Festival, Hyde Park, London - Friday 4th July 2008

What better way to spend a glorious Friday afternoon in London, than by going to the gigantic marketing opportunity that is the Wireless Festival. The O2 Wireless Festival. With stages sponsored by Tuborg, Sandisk, and MTV, other areas sponsored by O2, Blackberry, New Balance, Yazoo, Ubisoft, and many others that I lost count of, and loads more people giving out free samples of stuff. Still, I suppose having quite that much sponsorship makes up for not selling all that many tickets, and in fact never being able to sell out your event. Some decent bands on the bill today though, even if many probably are only there to take O2's money.

The first band I saw were Lightspeed Champion, opening up the main stage in bright sunshine. Despite this, singer Dev was still wearing his trademark hat, and appeared on stage with the full Lightspeed Champion band. Having narrowly missed them at Glastonbury the previous week, and being a fan of their album, I was especially pleased to be able to get right to the front of the stage for this set - the gates having not long since opened, and everybody likely to still be at work. They played for about 45 minutes, which was a pleasing 15 minutes longer than advertised, and I was really, really impressed by their show. The band featured a violinist, bassist and drummer, as well as Dev on Guitar and vocals - and they had a much more "electric" sound than I had expected. The set was mostly drawn from their album, and the final song featured a guitar version of the Star Wars theme, opening up an epic version of Midnight Surprise. A really enjoyable set - the band were great, Dev's banter with the crowd was fantastic, and I will definitely be going back to see Lightspeed Champion as soon as possible.

During the Lightspeed Champion set, I got a text message from O2 offering me some free lunch, so after their show, I went off to avail myself of a free hotdog (have that, Morrissey!). Next up on the main stage were Dirty Pretty Things, whose new album came out 4 days previously. I had fairly low expectations of this set, especially having heard their latest single Tired Of England, which to me sounds a bit like Blur in 1995, at their Country House worst. The set kicked off with a batch of songs from the first album, but it seemed fairly standard to me. The older songs were executed pretty well, but nobody in the swelling audience really seemed very interested, and neither did the band. The new songs seemed much less good, and, with the threat of missing Black Kids play in the tent (sorry, SanDisk Stage), I left DPT before the end of their set.

When I got to the tent, The Rascals had just finished playing, and with hindsight, I wish I'd left DPT earlier, because Alex Turner joined them onstage. The fact that this keeps happening makes The Rascals a pretty unmissable band when they are playing gigs you are at - which I'm sure is completely the idea - to get people in to see them, in the hope that Alex Turner might show up.

Anyway, after 20 minutes or so, Black Kids appeared in front of a pretty packed tent, and to an absolutely rapturous reception. They wished everybody "Happy 4th July", and then launched into pretty much the same set that they had played at Glastonbury a week previously. This time, being in a much smaller and more intimate setting, it seemed like much more of a party. The band were in the mood for a party set, and much of the audience knew what to expect. This was a very entertaining set from start to finish, and after Lightspeed Champion it was the second really good show of the day. The highlight for me was during final song Look At Me, when the whole front half of the tent was moving its feet.

Black Kids were quickly followed by The Courteeners, after a lightning changeover which seemed to catch up almost all of the 20 minute delay that the tent was running with. After seeing how full the tent was for Black Kids, it emptied out surprisingly for The Courteeners, meaning a good spot near the front was easy to find. The band played almost the same set as at Glastonbury, including early versions of Cavorting and Acrylic which immediately kicked off a melee in the middle. The band (and Liam Fray in particular) didn't seem quite as up for it all as they had been at Glastonbury, but Liam spent quite some time talking about the fans in London - expressing amusement at reviews that they don't have any fans here. Judging by the audiences I have been in to see them in London, it isn't quite true, but you can certainly get closer to this band in London than their quality means you should. Their performance was again top class, they sounded fantastic, and Liam Fray is starting to look, sound and act increasingly like his more famous namesake from Manchester. Great band, and always a pleasure to see them.

When I got outside the tent after The Courteeners' set, The Wombats were playing on the main stage. Their set was a standard Wombats set, which seemed to go down pretty well with the fairly large crowd watching. Early single Lost In The Post was an early highlight of their set, and although I wasn't paying complete attention, their show sounded pretty decent.

Next up, and the main support on the main stage was Beck, with his band of musicians that all looked rather cool. His set started really well, with Devil's Haircut first up, closely followed by The New Pollution, and with a great version of Loser appearing before too long into the set. With a start like that, it was always going to be hard to keep it up - many of the songs I didn't know, but sounded good all the same. Then the newer, slower, more downbeat songs came along, and I felt that the set seemed to flag slightly in the middle. It was always interesting to watch, and always entertaining enough, but not quite at the full heights that Beck can often get to. Towards the end of the set, though, things kicked back up a gear, with a brilliant cover version of Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime, Where Its At, and E-Pro to finish off. It had been a while since I'd seen Beck before, and although the hits have dried up over the last few years (which means that his sets are no longer quite as full of highlights), he can still put on a very good show.

Finally, the headliner of the day, Morrissey. Last time I saw him was in the US, where he loosened up and played lots of fantastic Smiths songs that I don't think you'd see in the UK. This show started with Last Of The Famous International Playboys, followed immediately by a great version of Ask. The next few songs got many of Morrissey's recent singles out of the way, including Irish Blood, English Heart, and First Of The Gang To Die. After such a promising start, the excitement distinctly slowed down as the set went on.

Quite a few new songs (some good, some not so good), a fantastic Buzzcocks cover, and some very weirdly obscure Smiths songs, meant that this wasn't a wall-to-wall fantastic show, but it wasn't a complete stinker either. One of those middling shows - as the divided opinions on the Morrissey fansite review would probably bear out (as well as carrying a complete transcript of everything Morrissey said on stage). Morrissey fans can be a bit scary at times.