Parklife one day festival

Parklife Festival, Platt Fields Park, Manchester. 12 June 2010
3/5
By Michael Curtis

Entry to a dance music festival on a sunny June weekend sounded like a golden ticket. Once I had joined a queue behind a sizable portion of the other 20,000 ticket holders, I started to wonder if a festival run in the middle of a British city would be so perfect.

Finally making it inside, party jockey Kissy Sell Out was tonking out his lurid, UK funky electro on the towering mainstage, soon to be followed by Calvin Harris. The likes of Erol Alkan and Vitalic were lined up in one of the festivals big top tents, with the other two given over to Northern drum and bass/dubstep mega-nights Ape and Metropolis. Lounging on the grass and enjoying the sun seemed preferable for the afternoon, though the central area was littered with plastic bottles and trash before long.

Down in the Ape/Metropolis encampment, formidable performers like Joker and Skream b2b Benga lead the charge. Playing in the daylight hours they were subdued, shorn of their vital grit and aggression. Their MC's ought to have got over berating the soundman for the volume restraints, an obvious limitation at a city festival. High Contrast was more successful at motivating the crowd, with a diverse selection which made plenty of sense in the circumstance. Buraka Som Sistema also did a great job in building a wild, tribal atmosphere with their heavyweight grooves and big stage presence.

I probably should have stayed around these two tents, where it felt like the kind of festival I wanted to be at, but I had to check out the Crosstown Rebels tent. Main DJ's Clive Henry and label boss Damian Lazarus came with all the swagger of Ibiza DJ's but totally failed to ignite the floor. There was plenty of appetite amongst the people packed in to the diminutive tent, and their bare tech-house sound was accessible but lacked the swing or musical depth to up the ante. A disco influence crept in for the latter stages of Jamie Jones set and made it feel a bit more special, but the Lazarus' 'rebels' sounded bland and generic today.

The main stage and electro big top were plainly set up to cater for mainstream tastes, but the masses seemed unresponsive. Maybe England's drab performance in the world cup, watched by many on a big screen, soured the party spirit as the sun was setting. Booka Shade got all breathless playing their stadium house tracks, but with the audience acting like they were hanging around with friends at a bus station not a party, they looked pretty daft trying to liven things up prancing around ever harder behind their synths and electronic drum kit.

Over in the massive electro big top, Vitalic played with the toughness and physicality to get people squeezed in and jacking. A track like 'LA Rock' may have been a big hit, but it's also raw uncompromising. This is what makes it special and affecting. In planning this event, the organisers clearly made compromises to appeal to 'mainstream' tastes. Programming a party as big as this they probably felt they had to. As I made the long walk across the festival, I had to think that this party was too big. We got all the hassles of a festival (big queues for portaloos and shit overpriced booze) along with the restrictions of city clubbing (volume and licencing restrictions) but without the exciting diversity and quality of music. Is it really possible to get a festival atmosphere in a city, without asking people to make the effort and travel for the music they love?

Opposite the main stage was the small Now Wave tent. This is were we got to see Four Tet niftily skipping across genre boundaries, letting his loops spiral deliciously into new concotions. Going in one time, I realized that the performer Steve Mason was the one time member of the The Beta Band. I was disappointed to miss most of his band's set, but seemingly happier then Mason himself: he left the stage looking like he'd been slapped. Quite possibly this ambitious and capable musician was disgruntled at being stuck in a diminutive tent, not gracing the grandiose main stage. If so, I'd happily agree that this music festival would have been more exciting had such an imaginative performer been put on a level footing with the big name attractions.


Published on Resident Adviosr
http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=7593