The O2 Wireless Festival
June 26, 2006 on 6:37 pm |First off. It isn’t a festival. There’s no camping or anything. So that means that everybody is clean and happy. And not dirty and anti-happy. You know what I mean. Well I woke up at a leisurely 8:30am. Got the train. IT COST ME £36!!!!!!!! AHHH. I GOT RIPPED OFF! Then this guy sits next to me on the train. About 50. And every 20 minutes of so asks me whether the next station is “London Waterloo”. Er. He did have a train map folded in front of him. I think he just wanted to talk to me.
I got out of Waterloo and thought: “hey… Hyde park is in London, I can walk it!” So I set off. 5 minutes later I was lost. I did see a Sushi Bar though. Cool! Then I saw another Sushi Bar. That wasn’t as cool. Because it was like. The second one that day. That’s just not cool. I did find the nearest train station which was Piccadilly Circus. And took the train to Hyde Park Corner. Because it was pretty obvious where that was. And I needed to go to Hyde Park. So yes.
Well I got there an hour early. And I met up with Foz, Ralph, Jon Risness and Ali. They kind of let me tag along.
Conversation between Me, Foz and the gate woman (we were at the front of the getting in queue):
Me: What are we going to do when we get in there.
Foz: Run straight to the main stage.
Gate Woman: No you’re not.
Foz: Why?
Gate Woman: Just don’t. Imagine that I’m your headteacher. And I said that if you ran, you’d get a detention.
Me Thinking: Oh-kay.
That was fun.
Well first was The Like. They’re a girl band. A pretty nice looking girl band. Well 2/3rds of them are anyways.
Next was Gogol Bordello. They lived up to my expectations and more. So mad. But amazing. The album is good enough. But when performed live, it just comes to life. They started with “Sally”, and a few songs later “Start Wearing Purple” made the crowd go wild. Finally they played such songs as “Think Locally, F*ck Globally” and “I Would Never Want To Be Young Again”. Brilliance!
Next was the Dirty Pretty Things. Ex-Libertines’ Carl Barât can really get the crowd going. Well he doesn’t have to try that hard. There was this girl next to me that literally screamed throughout their set. Thoroughly enjoyable no doubt! Plus, I got on TV during “Bang Bang You’re Dead”. Mmm.
THE RACONTEURS. What can I say? Jack White is just amazing. I’m sure anybody who saw him would agree. Well he’s pretty pale in real life too. Well an all round excellent set. The actually stole the limelight from the Strokes for me. I’m not sure Foz or Ali would agree… but the opening “Intimate Secretary”, middling “Steady As She Goes” and closing “Blue Veins” and “Yellow Sun”. (Correct me if I’m wrong with the order. Because I almost certainly am!). Made me wet myself. Not literally.
The Strokes were something special too. They played a lot of First Impressions of Earth. Which was good, and bad. But i don’t see how people can complain about it after saying that FIoE was as good as the rest of their albums! Plus, they’ll be wanting to promote it! Anyways, during the Encore, Julian Casablancas came down to greet his screaming fans, and I stuck my hand out and he gave me five. Well touched it at least. Ali hugged him. Well as he would describe it, “nestled his head in his groin”. You know.
Excellent day all round.
Oh and PS I <3 my drama group. Especially Keli and Maddie because they’re anmazing and they’re going to read this and comment. Whereas the other’s aren’t. That’s why I love those two in particular. If anybody else reads this and comments, you’ll be put on the love list!
PPS Sorry for a lack of photos. I was having too much fun to actually bother to get a disposable camera. Fo shizzle!
Yey, hands can rest now. In stretchers.