O2 Wireless Festival
Hyde Park, London
14th June 2007
This festival was a first for me. The first time at Wireless, the first time at an inner-city festival. This review is also the first time that I have penned a piece, so please be gentle with me! The O2 Wireless Festival (to give it it's full sponsored title) has grown over the last few years and now is a four day event. Today the White Stripes and Queens of the Stone Age are the big draws - It is fair to say that this first day of the festival was all about rocking out. Headliners on the other days include Daft Punk, Faithless and (urgh!) the Kaiser Chiefs.
My mates and I arrived in plenty of time to absorb the atmosphere and secured a nice spot close to the stage. At this advanced time there were few people about. with most punters creating clusters on the floor, reading the newspaper and absorbing the surroundings. Unlike most festivals there is no camping, everyone is expected to go home at the end of the day. The facilities on site are superb - numerous beer tents line the edges of the ground, there are enough toilets that there are no queues. It is a very well thought out and organised festival. Unfortunately, this comes at a price. This was possibly the most sponsored event that I have ever been to. Every ‘feature' possible was sponsored, from the beer tents (When was the last time anyone drank any Tuborg beer in London?) to the VIP areas, to the smaller annex stages.
First act I witnessed on stage played to an almost indifferent crowd. It was a shame as they were musically gifted and produced a great set. The Kissaway Trail are Denmark's answer to Arcade Fire. They play epic-based songs just like Arcade Fire, albeit in a heavier, guitar based format. A great act that surely will creep-up those festival line-ups before too long. Next on stage were the woeful The Sounds. Haling from Sweden, they kept calling the crowd "Motherfuckers", which almost always isn't a good way to make friends. Their dull and insipid eighties inspired rock set over, we had yet more commercial plugging. 
Unlike most festivals where they hire people to press play on a CD player to keep the crowd interested, here at Wireless they played one music video on the big screen then bombarded us with adverts. They then decided to show us a video documentary which had some blonde bimbo strut around the site, telling us how great it all was. Of course this had non-stop references to main corporate sponsor, O2 (And I guess it worked because I'm telling you people all about it!).
Next up were the first surprise of the day. The Only Ones have recently reformed for a few 2007 dates. They played a great guitar driven set which featured great, gravely vocals from their lead singer. This turned out to be a great interlude in between two dross bands. Over at the other stages the Thrills and the Bees were entertaining and would probably have been better. However, as we were quite happy with our spot, we decided to stay routed to where we were. This glaring error of judgment soon became obvious to us Satellite Party came to the stage.
This is the band of Perry Farrell, formerly frontman of Jane's Addiction. The band consisted of lots of beautiful people, including a woman in sequin swimsuit who seemed to have no other purpose than to strut on stage and dance with Perry who was wearing a corset. They apparently played a few songs of Jane's Addiction but seeing as they were never favourites of mine, I didn't recognise them.
Satellite Party's bizarre rock and roll show over, I was looking forward to seeing Modest Mouse (together with Johnny Marr) but they had to cancel after one of them got bottled in Germany. So we were left waiting for Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA). Appearing to a now significantly larger crowd, they blew us away with their heavy power rock. If there was a criticism, it was that the music seemed a little muffled through the speakers. This was a shame as they obviously had the ability to blow us away, however, it appeared that only those at the front could really enjoy themselves fully.
A rocking QOTSA set over, it was all about the main act. This was the act that I, and many others, had come to see - The White Stripes. I was at first fearful that they couldn't play to this large a crowd, indeed the only time I saw them play to such a large show was at another festival and I was right at the front for that one. All fears I had were simply blown away by the primal garage rock blues that Jack and Meg were playing on stage. The only concession to the large crowd that they made was in their choice of songs. This wasn't a traditional Stripes set-list. There were few covers thrown in and they only played three from their new album. They were performing more of a potential greatest hits package. There is nothing wrong in this, they were indeed playing to many who were uninitiated tonight.
The stage was dressed in red, with a startling crimson backdrop, while the large video screens were relaying everything through a brilliant red and white filter. This was the White Stripes festival show and they were here to conquer any people who still thought that the White Stripes are not the future (and paradoxically the past) of Rock and Roll. They tore straight into ‘Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground' with the crowd going bonkers for this old classic. An electric ‘Hotel Yorba' tore straight into new songs, ‘Icky Thump' and ‘I'm Slowly Turning into You'. ‘Icky Thump' saw Jack White play guitar and organ at the same time to dramatic effect. ‘I Think I Smell a Rat' saw the Stripes go back to their primal blues and the seamless transition between ‘Death Letter' and ‘Motherless Children' was a joy to behold. A confident Meg stepped up to the microphone to sing, ‘In the Cold Cold Night' and was warmly received by the crowd. Her singing is a lot more assured in the past, maybe she's been practicing while Jack has been doing his thing with the Raconteurs?
A beautiful ‘Jolene', as always, was simply divine, and showcased Jack White's vocal abilities. His wail is not classically trained but you'd be hard pressed to find a better rock and roll voice in music today. ‘Ball and a Biscuit' was rough, bluesy and to put it frankly brilliant. This was the song when it came out which made me realise that the Stripes are not a one-trick wonder. In my opinion , it is one of their best songs.
The encore consisted of ‘I Just Don't Know What to do With Myself' with the now enthralled crowd singing along. ‘We're Gonna Be Friends' showed that the playful Jack White is still going strong, while ‘Seven Nation Army', their most commercially successful tune to date, meant that the crowd went home with the noise still ringing in their ears. This was a triumphant set from the White Stripes, let's hope that they come back to the UK soon to tour Icky Thump properly.
All in all the O2 Wireless Festival was a mixed bag. The line-up today was too inconsistent in quality to justify going along just to see some bands. Today's mini-festival was great if you were a fan of QOTSA and/or the White Stripes. If you were merely looking for some fun, frolics, random characters and music in the sun, then this probably isn't the festival for you.
The White Stripes played:
‘Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground'
‘When I Hear My Name'
‘Hotel Yorba'
‘Icky Thump'
‘I'm Slowly Turning into You'
‘I think I Smell a Rat'
‘I'm a Martyr for my Love for You'
‘Death Letter'/'Motherless Children'
‘ In the Cold Cold Night'
‘Jolene'
‘Cannon'/'John the Revelator'
‘Astro'/'Ball and Biscuit'
‘Blue Orchid'
‘The Denial Twist'
‘Wasting my Time'
‘I Just Don't Know What to do with Myself'
‘We're Going to be Friends'
‘Seven Nation Army'
by Steven Roman
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