V 2005 Festival

Saturday John and I went to V 2005 with Michelle and her friend Karen. The V festival is one of the British summer music festivals (the best one, although Glastonbury always looks like a lot of fun, but I haven't been to that one).

It was an amazing day. We saw The Stands, Goldie Lookin' Chain, The Magic Numbers, Jet, The Zutons, The Bravery, Kaiser Chiefs, The Streets, and Oasis. John managed to see The Doves as well. The highlights for me were The Magic Numbers, The Zutons, and Kaiser Chiefs.

The Magic Numbers is an impressive band that stands out for many reasons. The main reason is obvious: they make really good music. It's folk rock at it's greatest. But there is also something about the band that is unique, unmissable, and fantastic: they are big people, noticeably overweight. From what I hear it is really hard for most people to get a music contract, full stop. James Blunt, who has been at number one for weeks now, was rejected by record company after record company and it looked like he would never make it. So the fact that a record company put aside it's definition of what is 'hot' and signed them is terrific, and it should be an inspriation to everyone who ever feels like an underdog. But even better than that was the reception they got at this festival. They were on in the beginning of the day, only the third on the stage, which usually means you don't have too big of an audience, and the audience was huge. And EVEN BETTER than that -- everyone knew the words and was singing!! And I wasn't the only one who was happy for these underdogs; the lead singer was very noticeably chuffed, all smiles. How satisfying that must have been for them after having to walk off of Top of the Pops in order to stand up for themselves.

Towards the end of the Magic Numbers set, Jade Goody walked past us. I thought it was her, and I managed to tell John with enough time for her to see her too, who also thought it was her. Then on the way to see Jet we saw her again. I nearly got a pic with her but she walked off the other way. Gotta love those celebrity sitings, even if it's a D-lister!

The Zutons were fantastic. They've got so much energy to their music, and everyone was jumping around. They have a female saxaphone player who was dancing around and singing along which also made them fun.

Kaiser Chiefs were really good. Another one where everyone was jumping around. We'd had a few beers by the time they came on, and a girl a few feet from us had this Barbie balloon that was blocking our view of the stage (people have all sorts of things in the crowd -- flags, costumes, etc -- to make them stand out) so we got the girls behind her to 'Kill Barbie.' I even lent them my bobby pin to do the deed. We tried to be rational with her but she wanted her balloon to be in everyone's way, so it had to be destroyed. Those girls made many people happy.

Oasis closed the day with nearly a full set. John and I lost Mich and Karen by that point. There is nothing like 80,000 people singing their hearts out to What's The Story Morning Glory to remind me that I am only a guest in this country. This song was never released as a single but there is an entire generation which has been defined by it here. I only vaguely recognized it when it came on, as I'd really only heard it the other times I've seen Oasis live (always in England).

While we were watching Oasis a woman came and stood in front of me. It turns out she was with Virgin Radio (Virgin are the main sponsors of the festival -- the 'V' stands for Virgin), and she turned around to us and 'interviewed' us. She asked us if we were having a good time, to which I think I said 'Wooooooo!' then she asked me if I was loving it and I said something really clever like 'yeah, loving it!' And then she went away, and I thought of all the cool things I could have said. Such is life. Then a couple of minutes after she left, Vernon Kay came and stood right next to me. Another D-list celeb, Vernon is a BBC1 DJ and also does lots of TV presenting. He was one of the hosts of the festival. I did get a pic with him which I will obviously share when it gets downloaded. Chappers was also there but I didn't realize it until later, at which point I snapped a pic of him, too.