1234 Shoreditch Festival Shoreditch Park, London 24/7/10
4/5
By: Steve Rose
Apparently, the etymology of 'Shoreditch' is debated, with legendary traditions linking it to ‘Soerditch’ (an ancient word for ‘sewer ditch’) as well as associations with Jane Shore, a mistress of Edward IV whose untimely death resulted in her corpse being retrieved from a previously unnamed ditch in the area. With these slightly unsavoury origins of the location in mind amalgamated with its current reputation for Nathan Barley-ism and the emergence of the 'joke person' culture, any festival brave enough to take place in the area seems somewhat doomed from the start.
Having said this, for the first of the three years that the 1234 Shoreditch festival has been knocking about, this is the first time they have appeared to have their shit together. This year’s event had a pretty incredible line-up, and the weather was entirely conducive to summer-party-vibes. Despite a few folks unavoidably whining about bad sound, toilet queues and a rather uncouth line to get to the guestlist box office (who the hell gave us all guest list anyway?), 1234 Shoreditch was a splendid day out in the park.
With their line up featuring super-hyped Ronettes and Ramones inspired Dum Dum Girls; Los Angeles residing, Best Coast-dating Wavves returning to fine form with Jay Reatard's (RIP) backing band behind him, Fucked Up’s legendary head splitting hardcore and an extremely dubious yet much talked about set by Peter Hook & friends (quite literally butchering Joy Division's classics), 1234 seems to actually tap into the 'underground ethos' of Shoreditch and put on a real display.
Ultimate Trush, Flats, Trailer Trash Traceys, Comenichi and ultimate underdogs Invasion are also representing, as well as all the usual UK small festival favourites such as These New Puritans, Rolo Tomassi and co who top off a splendiferous day off swigging fairly reasonably priced cider in the sun.
What’s more, as the sun set and the festival drew to a close, with far fewer festival casualties than would have been expected, the extremely opportunist festival organisers had thought ahead and put on somewhere in the region of fourteen after-parties, ranging from raves to hipster hoe-downs with the likes of whacked out wierdos Human Hair, Not Cool and other such Shoreditch stalwarts. Roll on next year, says us.
Artists in this article: Dum Dum Girls, Wavves, Fucked Up, Joy Division, Comanechi, These New Puritans, Rolo Tomassi
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