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Friday, July 25, 2008

DESPERATE BUT NOT SERIOUS 

Here's a running commentary from the recent BBC3 coverage of the first annual At One With Oneness Festival which took place last weekend just outside Grimsby.

Even though there have already been 96573 music festivals in Britain this summer, the At One With Oneness Festival is, say organisers, "a completely new and exciting concept".

The BBC cameras captured the highlights over the weekend. On hand were Radio One's Edith Bowman ...


Edith: muddy but amazing

... and Radio One's Zane Lowe (aka Zip Love, aka the New Zealand B-Boy, stop larffing at the back).


Zane interviews somebody or other on site, fuck knows who.

The camera cuts back to the studio, which is done out in the style of a barn, with haystacks and a zany papier mache cow. There has just been an OB featuring Rufus Hound interviewing the Moving Cardboard Theatre Co., who are dressed up as egg cartons.

Zane: "Thanks Rufus! Edith, I believe you've been having a bit of a walkabout and took in a few bands earlier today. Who've you seen?"

Edith: "Well, I went to see The Fratellis on the Hope And Serenity Stage."

Zane: "How were they?"

Edith: "What can I say? They were just ... amazing ... incredible. Then I moved on to the Recycled Pigeon Shit Stage halfway through Groove Armada's set."

Zane: "What were they like?"


Edith: "Oh, they were incredible, just amazing. The atmosphere was just amazing. I was amazed. After that I felt like I needed to, y'know, chill out a little bit so I went to the Acoustic Smugness Tent and saw Duffy doing a low key set."

Zane: "What was that like? A lot of people would say that people like Duffy don't belong at festivals ..."


Edith: "That's just ridiculous - she was amazing. That girl can sing! She was amazing. Anyway, I've been told that you've been hanging out at the Post Ironic Stage!"

Zane: "Ahem. This is true."


Edith: "And a little bird told me that you saw ... Engelbert Humperdinck! Wow! Amazing! What was he like???"

Zane: "I tell you man ... when he took to the stage I had my doubts. Does someone like Engelbert belong at a festival? But after a couple of numbers he rubbed into Please Release Me and I tell you, the crowd went crazy and he JUST KILLED IT! What can I say, the dude's a legend!"


Engelbert: killed it

Edith: "Amazing! Wow, who would've thought it! Anyway, now we're going over to three hours of highlights from The Editors' set because the singer knocked me up ... but they were just amazing."

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Comments:
Engelbert was my childhood hero.

It must have been the sideburns, or summat in my Farley's Rusks.
 
I can't concentrate on the music or having a good time for fear of having to use the chemical toilets.
 
Now I KNOW I'm too old for this blog, Betty. The only one of those people I have heard of (true) is Englebert.
Time to sell the house and move into sheltered accommodation.
 
I'm still waiting for the post-ironic reclamation of Elaine Paige. She was on The Two Ronnies, y'know.
 
Will next year's be a Twoness Festival?
 
Garfer - can't beat a man with massive sideburns. It's a sign of A MAN'S MAN. Plus, every time you walked past a men's hairdressers in the 1970's there used to be pictures in the window of blokes with Engelbert hairstyles.

MJ - the only time I ever attended a one day festival, my period came on very early, so, er, imagine how much fun that was ...

Dive - come on, you're only about three or four years older than me! Just because I know who those bands are doesn't mean that I like them, however.

Tim - I'm not sure that Elaine Paige would be a good festival act, as she's a short arse and people beyond the very front of the stage would't be able to see her. Perhaps she could learn to stilt walk.

Llewtrah - by the tenth year, it would be the Teness Festival , and loads of confused housewives from Tunbridge Wells would turn up expecting to see Andy Murray go out in the quarter finals, but would have to put up with seeing The Hoosiers instead.
 
I saw Chemical Toilets at Glastonberry. They were awesome!

I think you're ready to pass through to the other side Betty ....Radio Two beckons....
 
Basically, Betty, you just recorded the program and transcribed it, didn't you?

When I used to go to Pilton (we don't call it Glastonbury round here - Glastonbury is a town where the festival isn't held) back in the 1850s, we used to take acid and completely make the bands up...

It was amazing...incredible...
 
Murph - was Glastonberry held in an orchard then? I think I've passed through Radio Two and am headed for Radio Seventeen, where you only ever hear Mantovani, Charlie Chester and Semprini Serenade.

Kek - that explains a lot. I always thought that Ozric Tentacles didn't exist in the material world. A pity that The Hoosiers aren't just a figment of someone's altered imagination ( ... well, they wouldn't be. They're not interesting enough for a start).
 
Isn't Engelbert's real name something like Colin Crapspray or something?
 
I asked for and received an Eng. Hump. LP for Christmas from the parents - when he was at his peak so to speak. Hooked on sidies.
 
"I always thought that Ozric Tentacles didn't exist in the material world."

They don't - they come from Frome.
 
Where are my rodeo clowns?
 
I am too embarrased to tell you what I thought Humperdinck was singing during Les Bicyclettes de Belsize...
yes it was totally gynaecolgical?

My son (lucky bugger) is off to see Bloc Party at Lollapalooza next week in Chicago..
I got him totally hooked on Bloc Party...he was in London last year on a school outting and discovered the Ting Tings..
Duffy (who can really sing) will be there, plus Go Team I still like them..

oh to be comfortable in the midst of several thousand people again.
 
At the risk of agreeing with MJ (dies a little more inside), you'd never catch me at one of those things. Just one flush of a chemical toilet with the lid up can cause enough fallout to sterilise the land in a ten mile radius, or something. Plus, mud doesn't go with my complexion.

Having said that, once I'm in my hazmat suit, I'd flush away to my heart's content, exiting the microscopic cubicle to find all the pretentious twats slowly dissolving in the muck.

Incredibly Amazing happy days!
 
Billy - no. Collin's Crapspray was the product that he used on his distinctive and immaculate hairdo.

Arabella - When was he in his prime? I hope you weren't literally hooked on sidies. That would have been quite painful for the owner of the sidies.

Kek - I always have problems accepting the fact that Kate Bush is supposed to be from Welling, and grew up "on a farm". Anyone who has visited Welling will know that Kate Bush would've been beaten to death if she'd lived there and that there's no such thing as a farm in Welling. It must be a Welling in a parallel universe.

Forty-two - in a field in Lincolnshire.

Donnnnnnnn - it wouldn't surprise me if the lyrics were of a gynaecological nature. I once saw Engelbert being interviewed in front of a large print of a woman breastfeeding. I've not trusted him since then. I've only been to one day of a festival, once. Just not my sort of thing. These days there seem to be ten festivals in Britain every weekend through the summer, and the same bands seem to be playing at every one. In fact, I'm sure that a lot of bands must have ten copy bands, because it's the only way that they can be at all those festivals at the same time.
 
Inexplic - I'm fairly squeamish about chemical bogs, or any sort of activity where there's a possibility that I can't wash for days on end or will tread in dogshit (or any sort of shit ... euh), which is also why I've avoided camping holidays. Not very rock 'n' roll, I know, but why pay huge amounts for a festival ticket to tread in shit, smell horrible and see a load of awful bands?
 
Well, we tread in a lot of dog and fox shit, there's a horrible smell from all the uncollected rubbish and I should feel grateful that we aren't inflicted with a load of awful bands. Mind you, if The Hoosiers or The Wombats set up stage in our back garden I'd shoot them.
 
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