Notes From Wireless

(some nice photos) (they're not mine)

• Turning up in time only to see the last three main stage acts of the day doesn't do much to help get an impression of a festival atmosphere (I was watching England v Ecuador in the world cup in a pub with a projector that broke down every twenty minutes. I missed GoodBooks sadly... not much else though)
  
• What kind of festival finishes at just gone 10pm anyway though?
• 2/3 acts mention the football: Dave Gahan gives a shout of 'One-nil!' midsong and Mystery Jets are all in matching England shirts. Well, matching apart from the drummer, who ruins things by wearing an actual replica shirt instead of the unofficial ones of the rest

• They get saddled with absolutely atrocious sound for "Little Bag Of Hair" in particular
• Also slightly overuse Blaine Harrison's additional percussion
• And still sing "you picked me up at the station" in "Alas Agnes" instead of King's Cross like on the demo (and album lyrics booklet!) which annoys me far more than it should
  
• Enjoyable set though

• Goldfrapp don't quite have a whole set of twisted pop masterpieces and so their distance (barely a word between songs, of course) just occasionally translates to boredom
• They nearly do though, and Alison looks very cool indeed
• They also have some dancers for about half the songs who liven things up, almost sexy but just too weirdly dressed to be entirely comfortable considered as such
• The person next to me loves "Ooh La La" and it's her favourite Goldfrapp song ever and that's why she knew they had to come and see Goldfrapp!!
• She still spends most of the song on her phone and/or watching her friend pull his cocaine out of his underwear and snort it though.
• She and her friends believe that one song goes "I'm in love with a sex machine" and sing along loudly. Which is hilarious enough to make up for anything else.

• Depeche Mode have a lot of Eastern European fans
• They have got really, really good at what they do, as a lot of bands their size do I guess
• Dave Gahan looks far better with his shirt off than could be expected
• He is also struck with some kind of ailment which makes him unable to last a song without shouting "Woo!" though. I believe Bernard Sumner suffers from something similar...
• My knowledge of their songs beyond Violator is sketchy at best. It's amazing how many intros I can kid myself into thinking are either "Personal Jesus" or "Enjoy The Silence" as a result
• They really do play them both though! Together! Before the encore!
• Yeah, they're really impressive
• I guess I don't feel too ripped off but it still isn't really much of a festival