Review: V Festival
Centennial Park, Saturday 28 March
By William Posters
V festival gets much bigger and much better every year. Saturday's all-dayer in Centennial Park was exactly what music festivals in Australia should be all about. The sun was shining, the queues for the bars and the loos were no way near as bad as last year when you pretty much had to join one line once you'd left the other, and the atmosphere was electric at times.
The organisers cannily put Duffy on the main stage first to ensure that people arrived early in numbers. Her husky foot-shuffling set got the afternoon warmed up, and no-one could take their eyes off her identical twin backing singers.
Elbow were on next and they absolutely nailed it. Is there a better singer or more engaging front man in all the world than Guy Garvey? He's the kind of bloke you'd love to have a beer with.
Watching 10,000 people do the "running man" to Madness's 'Baggy Trousers' was a life-affirming experience. Has Suggs been cryogenically frozen for the last 20 years? He looks no older.
The same cannot be said for Vanilla Ice who sadly wasn't sporting his own famously baggy trousers. But he entered into the fun of it to implore a delirious crowd to "Stop, collaborate and listen" one more time. It's amazing how many people know all the words to 'Ice Ice Baby' when put to the test.
Razorlight's Johnny Borrell isn't everyone's cup of tea, sure, but bloody hell can he belt out a tune.
All that said, when it came to the headliners, the mainly British line-up was a bit five years ago and as the night wore on, it all got a bit wearing. Next up were the Kaiser Chiefs, whose act is surely in its vinegar strokes with lead singer Ricky Wilson going through the motions with the desperate frenzy of a man who knows he's not got much left. 'Everything is Average Nowadays.' Rich, coming from him.
Snow Patrol? Meh. The Killers? They've been here so often, they should be renamed The Serial Killers.
Next year, let's have a few more bands on the rise than on the wane and it'll be just about perfect.
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