Rise Festival - Finsbury Park, London - 8/7/06
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
The Rise Festival is a fantastic idea for a number of reasons. For one, it's a great thing that in such tumultuous times the multicultural nature of modern day London can be still celebrated in such a relaxed, triumphant manner. Also - free music in a park on a sunny day, where everyone is free to sit down and share a drink with friends old and new over tunes Ken Livingstone has provided (yet one imagines hasn't hand picked), is something that should happen far more regularly. In fact, one even starts to wonder whether if this kind of thing was more commonplace people might feel less need to nonsensically regard those of different backgrounds as deserving of ill feeling at all.
>
Finsbury Park acts as the perfect setting (for reasons other than it being right near my house), a real multicultural melting pot in a city full of them, and itself the scene of many historic anti racism shows. Today sees everything from an African village to Cuban marching bands, not forgetting a healthy dose of middle class white music over the day (good - it's an ethnic background too, after all). Said genre begins its unveiling with The Duke Spirit, whose decidedly blues influenced take on moody rock and roll tries in vain to really ensnare the early attendees, largely due to folk behind the relevant knobs and switches struggling to get the sound as one would ideally choose it. One thing does cut across the land (yeah...) however, and that's Leila Moss's fantastic vocals, their sultry husk the only real distinguishable sound (other than a bass drum) in an otherwise messy sonic delivery. One can't help but wonder however that if The Duke Spirit had a whole set full of tunes as great as the penultimate 'Love is an Unfamiliar Name', our retrograde analysis wouldn't have been so concerned with the failings of the PA system.
Sway has less equipment to deal with, and as such fairs a little better. The MOBO adored English MC had previously been struck off the bill with a mysterious illness, only to be reinstated at the last minute. Credit to his fragile self, then, for supplying such an enjoyable set - full of clichéd 'when I say X, you say Y' and 'hands in the air like you just don't care moments it is, but it also comes peppered with some rather fine hip hop in both beats and lyrics. He's a clued up chap both in his verbosity and musicality, and his deft sense of humour doesn't go amiss either. He wins fans, us included.
After a moment trying in vain to really get in to the vibe created by Roy Ayers and associates (the man who created, and is therefore to blame for whatever 'acid jazz' is - it sounds to me like music for people who don't particularly like music, but there we go...), it's decided we should be getting a little more multicultural, and as such a trip to a Cuban-themed tent to decorate our arms with transfer Che Guevara tattoos gets underway. Men and women bang cowbells and parp on trumpets whilst walking their way over the parched grass, and everyone seems to have a smile on their face. None of us have yet managed to scrub off the tattoos. It's been days.
Back over at the now well attended main stage, Common is delivering some light hip hop not of the standard set by Sway earlier on, but still not wholly without its charms. Its trump card is the fantastic DJ, who sports the biggest grin of anyone in the park - after all, he's on the wheels of steel in front of thousands of people outside on a sunny day. Some people know when they've got it made, and he's one of them. He's also far more entertaining than the man at the front, something which we suspect, deep down, Common himself knows. Still, at least the C-man's better looking.
Ken Livingstone and Graham Coxon on the same stage? One can't help but heckle for cheaper tube travel, reasonable council tax, and more importantly a rendition of 'Ernold Same'. Sadly, none are forthcoming - only a short speech from Kenneth and a troubled, yet eventually blistering set from Graham. Even more gutting than our unfulfilled requests is that that the main stage still hasn't sorted out how to handle a guitar band, and as such the sound of Coxon is frightfully untidy for the first few tracks. Graham knows it. He looks pissed (off). The cheer that greets the eventual salvage of the situation says a lot about the set, however - it might as well be the headline moment. Once the pieces start to fit, Graham gets comfortable, removing his glasses, beret and tank top (but not to worry, he stops there) and throwing himself in to a set largely consisting of material to be found on this year's 'Love Travels At Illegal Speeds' LP, triumphing in an incredible version of album highlight 'I Don't Wanna Go Out', also spitting its way through the brazen punk of 'I Can't Look At Your Skin', cutesy pop of 'You & I' and the all round general crowd pleaser that 'Freakin' Out' was always going to be. Ruddy charming.
The Buzzcocks are larger and older than either you or they would have ever wanted them to be, but they thankfully play the hits rather adroitly and so nobody complains. In fact, they open their mouths and heartily sing along, everything from 'Orgasm Addict' to 'I Don't Mind', via, of course, a still fresh 'Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have)?' getting an airing. See - punk rock can be lucrative enough to provide a life seemingly full of many, many pies.
Finsbury Park doesn't seem entirely convinced by The Wailers, and to be honest, who can blame them - granted, we don't expect Bob Marley to return from the dead, but everyone in the band looks to be about 29 years old. Suspicious. They take an age to appear, and when they do it's only to commence some uninspiring light reggae, only really waking up the attendees by slipping nonchalantly into the undeniably dreamy 'Stir It Up'. Bob's up there somewhere, recanting to Hendrix and Beethoven how much better he used to do it.
Your Feedback
Login to post your comment