Rock and Pop: Preview - Wireless Festival
Published: 16 June, 2011
by ROISIN GADELRAB
IF the reports from last weekend’s Isle of Wight Festival are anything to go by, Pulp’s reformation is timely and glorious.
Anyone who didn’t get to see Jarvis Cocker’s skinny stage wranglings first time around, or even second time, would do well to catch a glimpse of the greying Sheffield super-geek now while you still can.
But if he doesn’t sing Babies when Pulp play Hyde Park next month, the disappointment may be too great to overcome.
This year’s three-day Wireless Festival (July 1-3) spans pop culture, and the timetabling gods have been kind, separating the styles to an extent – Sunday is the Britpop/guitar/indie crowd (Pulp, Grace Jones, TV On The Radio, Foals, The Hives, The Pretty Reckless and Yuck), Saturday is broadly more dancey (The Chemical Brothers, Chase & Status, The Streets, Aphex Twin, Chromeo, Janelle Monae, Devlin, Maverick Sabre), and Friday’ is a little more pop and “urban” (Black Eyed Peas, Plan B, Tinie Tempah, Bruno Mars, Example, Chipmunk, Wretch 32, Labrinth, Mike Posner, David Guetta).
It’s not a hard and fast rule so there’s a good spread of acts each day.
Just beware Hyde Park’s dustbowl affliction. By the time Wireless has come around, it has suffered in the region of 180,000 people on the previous weekend for Hard Rock Calling plus thousands more for Kings of Leon’s dates and, if the weather is as kind as previous years, the arid conditions will make for filthy feet, a rash of twitching eyes blinking out errant grit and tribes of bedraggled shipwrecked-style festival-goers by the end of each day.
It’s not been long since one of the most inspired bookings, TV On The Radio, lost their bassist Gerard Smith. Understandably, they cancelled a number of gigs, but this one survived – it remains to be seen how they deal with Smith’s absence.
Taylor Momsen’s back with The Pretty Reckless, and Foals and Yuck will easily take command on the Sunday. On the other hand, Grace Jones seems an odd signing. She may be a revival but she’s got little to do with the rest of the line-up and nothing in common with Pulp’s return. She’d be better placed next to Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks at Hard Rock Calling.
Black Eyes Peas are sure to put on a massively produced show on the Friday – will they go the way of Pink and entertain within an inch of their lives, or follow Kanye’s self-indulgent style and bore the crowd into a pre-encore exodus?
The Chemical Brothers, Chromeo and Chase and Status set the scene for one big rave on the Saturday so Hyde Park’s neighbours be prepared for the Richter scale vibrations. Janelle Monae’s another one to watch, modelled on James Brown and Prince.
Look out for the Met Police’s good-natured crowd herding at the end of the night – past efforts have included a moonwalking cop and an impressive Dappy N-dubz megaphone impersonation.
• Info from www.wirelessfestival.co.uk