Yes you read that line up correctly. How could I miss a show like this happening within 2 hours travelling time of here? No way on earth. I had no desire to see the first or third days of this festival even though there were acts I like playing on both days, but day 2 was essential.
I had an easy journey down by tube, train and then bus to the site in the middle of the basket of England that is the Kent countryside. It wasn't too hard getting in either and as I was walking round the outside of the site to get in I could hear a bit of MARY COUGHLAN'S opening set on the main stage. It didn't make me rush in to see the end of it. Instead I found a bar and found out I had to pay £3 to hire a glass for the day that was replaceable for every new drink and I could get my £3 back at the end if I needed to or just keep the cup with the running order on it as a souvenir. Which is why I still have my cup! Still at least they had some great Biddenham's cider or real ale to put in it.
After a lunch of Kentish cheeses and a quick look through my programme to plan my day it became apparent that there was one horrendous scheduling error. How come The Gang Of Four clash with Lou Reed? Surely they should have been on the main stage before Magazine and Newton Faulkner in the tent as that would have made an already incredible line up even better.
The first act I saw was DAMIEN DEMPSEY, the Irish singer songwriter and all round miserable git and therapy session survivor folksinger. He seemed to go on endlessly as he prattled on about how you shouldn't insult him as he don't care, Oh no he doesn't and even if you're smacked out of you mind on Heroin you should still love yourself. Damn, he may have shared some lyrical content with Flogging Molly but I really never need to hear or see him again. 30 minutes was far too much.
I then went over to the big tent to see the hotly tipped and sometimes hyped up FRANKIE & THE HEARTSTRINGS and they were miles better than Damien bed-wetter, really getting the crowd going. These kids from Sunderland could well go far with their brand of catchy love song indie. The stand out tunes for me were Photograph and Don't Look Surprised. The former showed off Frankie's grasp of stage craft and how to work the audience as much as the song did and the latter was just catchy enough to maybe be a hit in a Postcard stylee jangle pop revival. The fact that the drummer has Pop Sex LTD on his bass drum skin only goes further in their favour.
I then wandered back to the main stage to catch the end of BROTHERS set. They are being hotly tipped by themselves to be at the forefront of a new wave of Britpop and were subject to a bidding war among record labels desperate to sign the new Beady Eye or Oasis or Beatles, although lord alone knows why, as they are so generic and pointless as to be, well, pointless. Having seen 3 songs I never need to see or hear them again.
Next on was NEWTON FAULKNER who really should have been in the big tent rather than on the main stage. I know he will be playing to a sold out Royal Albert Hall later this week in his other group that you may have heard of called Deep Purple, though quite how he got that gig I haven't figured out.
He is a personable be-dreadlocked ginger one man band who jokes about a lot between songs and at one point has his strings on cassette with his cellos on foot pedal. It's okay as folk whimsy goes and he does get the place going by finishing with Bohemian Rhapsody which as a song choice probably tells us a fair bit about Newton Faulkner. I guess he will be bothering me at festivals on a regular basis from now on.
Next up were MAGAZINE or as Howard Devoto put it Magazine 6.0, this being the second show they have played with the current line up with new bass player John "Stan" White replacing the irreplaceable Barry Adamson. Really, talk about a thankless task having to replace one of the finest Bass players around. He could never live up to the job.
Still they opened with The Light Pours Out of Me which sounded fine as Howard is in excellent voice and knows how to work a crowd but they sounded a bit thin to be honest. Motorcade sounded OK but it missed the muscularity of Barry Adamson's playing and while Noko is a fine if not perfect replacement for John McGeoch, poor old Stan needs a good few more gigs to get even close to where he needs to be.
That said I still love to hear the Song From Underneath the Floorboards which was dedicated to Morrissey and everyone else who has covered it and Parade still has enough menace about it. Howard is doing his best along with Dave Formula to really bring the most out of the songs.
They then treat us to the only new song in the set that is dedicated to Terry Pratchett and may have been called Your Agony. It is all about hoping to die before you get too old and infirm. By the time they get to Permafrost, some of the people round me are showing signs of finding this hard going. It shouldn't be but they are just not quite tight enough no matter how well John Doyle drives things on from the drum kit. The version of Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin) helps them as enough of us can sing along to that one before they close with a pretty good version of Shot By Both Sides. It was good to see them again but they do miss Barry Adamson and can only hope that John White grows into his new role quickly.
Now that the sun was really out and it was nice and hot it was time for The PATTI SMITH Acoustic Group and well Patti knows how to work a huge crowd. For most of her set, she has the sort of smile on her face that is a cross between 'I can't believe 25000 (Or how ever many there are) people are here to watch me in the middle of the afternoon' and 'OH shit look how many people I have to please.'
Well please us she does, opening with Southern Cross quite slowly as the band of Tony Shanahan on various Basses and Piano, Lenny Kaye on Acoustic Guitar and Patrick Wolf on electric harp and violin (taking a break from promoting his new album Lupercalia) dig in, following up with a beautiful version of Blakean Year that has a far more packed crowd really going. Patti is all smiles between songs and gets us all communally dancing for Ghostdance as we all have to shake out the ghosts. Pretty much everyone around me is shaking them out all right.
Patti goes into full on rabble rousing mode supporting all the protestors and revolutionaries around the world at the moment before a stunning and impassioned version of Pissing In A River full of bile and spite assails us. She dedicated Because the Night to her late husband Fred Sonic Smith who it was written about. It made the place erupt as did the final long but never rambling version of Gloria that brought a short and sharp set to a brilliant finale.
So how do you follow Patti Smith? Well of course you bring on LOU REED who was playing the second show of his current European tour and has the most equipment and roadies of anyone playing today. As if signaling that this is going to be a festival friendly set, they open with a rousing version of Who Loves The Sun: a song that is practically made for afternoons like this.
Lou's current touring band, who are not his current studio band as Metallica are touring separately at the moment, are a 7 piece who in sound are close to his late 70's/ early 80's jazz rock outfits - a point mercilessly rammed home by a precision drilled version of Senselessly Cruel with a great squalling sax solo that showed Lou means business and was almost taking a greatest misses approach to the set-list. Which when your next selection is Temporary Thing is fine by me. This song showed Lou's voice off at it's best in absolute years he even managed a little bit of Falsetto at one point!!
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They slowed things down a bit with the title track from Ecstasy which was the only recent tune they played. It was slow and mesmeric, played as the music is almost the opposite of the lyrics and it sounded great. Lou then played around with the lyrics of Smalltown, re-inventing it to come from a hop farm in Paddock Wood rather than a small town in Pittsburgh. He almost managed to smile and even attempted to get the crowd going with some arm movements to get us cheering. It worked and by Lou's standards in recent years he was also pretty mobile onstage and almost managed to dance a bit.
This was followed by the oddest song I've ever heard him play live as he covered John Lennon's Mother. It got a huge cheer when everyone realised what he was singing, a real surprise but nicely done it sounded very heartfelt. He then showed a real sense of being at a festival as they went almost acoustic for Sunday Morning and Femme Fatale, both of which work really well in the sunshine. Even if his voice isn't quite sweet enough on Femme Fatale it's plenty good enough.
They then ramp up the power once more and go squalling into Waves of Fear. It's brutal and pounding and nasty as all hell and of course these days as contemporary as can be. It was a great version of one of my favourite songs from The Blue Mask. They finished with Sweet Jane played using the Rock & Roll Animal arrangement complete with a good chunk of the intro section. It was brilliant and showed that when he wants to, Lou is more than capable of playing to the crowd, rather than alienating them. It only made me even happier that I am also seeing him tonight for his 4th July party and show! I wonder what other treats he has lined up for us.
Well then my stomach split open and after I had lost a few pounds I was back ready for IGGY POP & THE STOOGES to do what they do best, yes lay waste to another huge crowd with what was the first gig with the current line up. This has been brought about by the fact Scott 'Rock Action' Asheton has had to go on sick leave for this tour and has been ably replaced by drum legend Toby Dammit who has in the past worked with among many others The Swans, Rufus Wainwright and Lydia Lunch.
They run onto the stage which is difficult for Mike Watt whose leg is still strapped up in a brace and launch into Raw Power and the field goes mental as you'd expect. Its quickly followed by Search & Destroy and while Toby Dammit may not be Scott Asheton he is easily good enough to carry it off and fit right in as a Stooge. James Williamson seems more confident than last year as he grows into his retirement job and happily watches Iggy run all over the place in Gimme Danger as he lays waste to the tune and that growl of sound that still sounds highly dangerous!
As ever Iggy invites a bunch of fans onstage for a Shake Appeal that is brilliantly raucous and chaotic as Iggy is subsumed by fans and then singing in the pit while the fans dance on.
After the stage is cleared they launch into I Need Somebody and it's clear there is nothing wrong with this version of the Stooges as we reach the middle section of 1970 and Funhouse where they slow things down and show how to crush us under a riff and then Steve Mackay's squalling, squonking sax breaks. as that fades out it's time for Iggy to leave us and the band to break into the Night Theme that is very much a James Williamson led affair and just as it starts to mutate into Beyond The Law Iggy is back and damn I love that song and it sounds great.
That's followed by a scorching rendition of Cock In My Pocket, a song whose lyrics now sound very pervy when an old guy like Iggy is singing about just wanting to fuck with no romance. It has a different impact to a young guy singing it, still its a great malevolent statement of intent both musically and lyrically and is perfectly dovetailed into Open Up and Bleed.
By this stage, the cameraman is finding plenty of women on shoulders to bare their boobs for Iggy & the Stooges and it's time for Iggy to fall on all fours and bark at us as they go into the set closer of I Wanna Be Your Dog: a song I never tire of hearing live and it crushes tonight as dusk approaches while Iggy is barking at the still to appear moon.
As you'd expect they come back for an encore and finish things off with a rampage through No Fun that sees Iggy down with the crowd once more and the band giving us their all. A great end to another great Iggy and the stooges set. Here's hoping Rock Action makes a swift and full recovery to join them on tour next time I get to see them.
As the Stooges end I join the exodus from the main stage to get away before headliner Morrissey comes on and there are a lot of us fleeing for the food stalls and the bars. After I've eaten I go and take a look at Manu Chao who are headlining the big tent and have to say they are not a patch on the last time I saw them about 10 years ago. His samba punk has far too many odd 80's boop boop sound effects and the dub sections really didn't cut it either.
It is also far too relentlessly feelgood sounding for me, I know the crowd was lapping it up and it certainly appeared that all the girlfriends of the Morrissey fans were at this show as the audience was about 50% female at a festival that for most of the day had not had anything like that ratio. After seeing Iggy, Lou and Patti in succession, it wasn't cutting it for me so I decided to head for the door about 4 songs in.
On my walk round to the bus stop I took in a god awful drum solo from Morrissey's band and three or four of his greatest hits that sounded like they would please his army of fans but leave the rest of us horribly cold.
I was glad I left early as the trains back to London were one every hour and twenty minutes and I still managed to get home just after midnight from a very great day out in the Kent countryside. Thanks to Vince Power and everyone who put on this excellent day's music.
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