++GIG REVIEW++
Despite being strip searched by anti terrorism police, our courageous reporter Mat Beal trooped onwards to review this year's Lovebox festival - where he encountered Operator Please, The Flaming Lips and more!
It's off to Hackney we go, to visit London’s foremost festival for people who don’t like festivals very much. Skipping merrily out of Mile End tube station, your correspondent is stopped and searched for “explosives and terrorist paraphernalia”. That’s East London for you, readers.
On a small stage sponsored by a well-known not-very-nice cider, EBONY BONES appears in a kind of nu-rave Bo Peep frock, yelling “make some noise for Ebony Bones!”
"Sadly, the Lovebox audience seems largely unmoved by The Flaming Lips. The stupid idiots. "
Her band features two similarly dressed backing singers, a masked trumpet player, a guitarist in Native American headdress, and—our personal favourite—a drummer who looks like he should be in Elbow or something.
Ms Bones plays a short, boisterous set, which climaxes with a song called ‘We Know All About You’. And then she is gone; we’re not sure what’s just happened, but we’re pretty sure it was the best thing we’ve ever seen.
In a kind of grubby wedding marquee on the other side of the park are the rather wonderful Australian whippersnappers OPERATOR PLEASE, who belt out a crowd-pleasing set featuring singles ‘Get What You Want’, ‘Zero Zero’ and the unstoppable ‘Just A Song About Ping Pong’ - as well as a convincing attempt at Salt ‘n’ Pepa’s ‘Push It’.
Meanwhile, GOLDFRAPP have decked the main stage out with morris dancer-themed bunting to complement their new material. Unfortunately, this means we have to endure a load of dreary hippy nonsense before they play any proper pop songs. There’s a gear shift midway through, illustrated by their dancers’ change of costume from white smocks to bikinis and wolf masks, and by the time they finish with a throbbing ‘Strict Machine’ we are won over.
Back on the unpleasant cider stage, THE GO! TEAM regale a small but very enthusiastic crowd with a selection of familiar highlights from their two albums. Despite missing a band member to tonsillitis, they’re reliably entertaining as ever; but why, literally several years into their glittering career, are they still playing tiny stages to hardly any people?
We hotfoot it back to the main arena for the latter portion of the THE FLAMING LIPS’ set, in time for ‘The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song’, ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’ and ‘Do You Realize?’.
Having warmed our hearts in various pokey dives over the years, it’s gratifying to see them on a stage big enough to do justice to their bombastic stage show, which tonight includes people in superhero costumes, balloons and confetti. Sadly, the Lovebox audience seems largely unmoved, the stupid idiots.
++ Mat Beal ++
Artrocker rating: 3
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