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Well, it’s the third day of the O2 Wireless festival, and we get there just in time to see… fuck it. Shall we just fast forward to Daft Punk?
Woah there, boy. Gigwise been looking forward to that moment for months now – a few more hours won’t hurt. In fact, dear reader, it should only be a few minutes in your case. There’s even a scroll bar on the right of the screen if you really can’t be arsed reading about Simian Mobile Disco and co. But that would be a mistake only marginally more forgivable than missing out on this, possibly the freshest and most exciting line-up of any of the major festivals in the UK this year.
As with any festival, it’s a slowish start to the day. The sun can’t quite decide whether or not it wants to stay out, while the steadily growing crowd seem keener on finding a nice spot or giving old HH itself the once-over than listening too intently to Metromony’s clanging rave thrills or Mutemath’s droning neo-krautrock.
The apathy begins to shift with the ever-welcome appearance of Datarock. There’s a fair bit of cheese involved with this gang, but a little personality seems to be exactly what’s needed to get things kicking off in front of the main stage. ‘Nightflight to Uranus’ may only be the match of Goldie Lookin’ Chain when it comes to humour, but its clash of rock and dance is made for the moment and pretty soon the crowd are beginning to get into it. The sun finally sees sense and joins the party, and so do the stars, with Klaxons, CSS and Mark Ronson all stood stage left watching the red-tracksuited funk machine hitting full flow. ‘Fa Fa Fa’ - the Talking Heads song that Talking Heads never wrote (though their lawyers may see it differently) - follows and, for a few minutes, everything in the world seems just about spot on.
Following Datarock on to the main stage are New Young Pony Club, a band who stand probably more on the verge of a Klaxons-style ‘breakthrough’ than any other band today. Singer Tahita Bulmer wastes no time getting the crowd on her side with a bit of local knowledge, before launching into the sublime ‘Get Dancey.’ Unfortunately, we only catch two more songs before heading to the other end of the field to catch Digitalism.
Other than Daft Punk and LCD Soundsystem, the German duo are the act that have got Gigwise’s juices flowing the most ahead of the festival and, stepping into the tent, it’s clear that we’re not alone in this. Jens Moelle and Ismael Tuefekci stand behind a modest set-up, with Jens looking like a cross between Nick Heyward and a young Lee Mavers as he yelps from beneath his blonde mop. Their unassuming appearance does not begin to hint at the monstrous sound they create, with only single ‘Pogo’ sounding subdued alongside the juggernauts that are ‘Jupiter Room’ and ‘Moonlight.’ They mix up ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Pump up the Jam’ before bleeding an excerpt from tonight’s headliners’ ‘Da Funk’ into their own Bangalter-esque ‘The Pulse’. Today as on record, Digitalism are pretty much an indie-dance dream, like Tom Vek produced by Soulwax. Hugeness awaits.
We emerge from the dome of sweatiness to the blinding sunshine and can see from here Mark Ronson and his band rocking the main stage etc, etc, etc. We stroll a bit closer but not that much closer, for as their admittedly-pretty funky version of Radiohead’s ‘Just’ draws to a close, the singer from Phantom Planet begins a depressingly faithful version of his band’s OC theme ‘California’. We cringe, but are we being too harsh? Mark seems like a nice fella and he obviously seems to have the Midas touch for producing pop with a mildly urban flavour for gobby English girls. A lot of people lap up his “really cool” reworkings of indie hits too. Maybe it’s just Gigwise that thinks they’re about as cool as the dripping tent from which we’ve just crawled.
So, back into the pressure cooker we go, this time to witness the other producer du jour, James Ford, performing with partner Jas Shaw as Simian Mobile Disco. Slowly but surely, the monumental ‘Sleep Deprivation’ roars into life, single-handedly making it possible to mention the word ‘trance’ in 2007 without being regarded as some superclub casualty suspended in a Sasha-soundtracked limbo. James and Jas not only look a bit like Tom and Ed up there, but they actually do have the potential to become the new Chemical Brothers, wiring and rewiring tracks such as ‘Get This Down’, ‘Hustler’ and their remix of Klaxons’ ‘Magick’ into dense, layered epics. Visuals are certainly lacking, with their performance being more of the ‘twist this, push that’ variety, but there’s no debating that SMD are basically a lap-top and a projector away from being dance tent perfection.
That’s not an accusation that can ever be levelled at CSS, who seem to have developed their stage routine from the outlandishness of Karen O, the multi-instrumentalism of !!! and the maturity of The Tweenies. They look great, frankly. Balloons adorn the stage, anchored to a giant gold emblem of the band’s moniker, their bass player sports one of several Ed Banger Records t-shirts we’ve seen today (Gigwise wants one) and Lovefoxxx pulls off an oversized Adidas top to reveal a purple catsuit that would make even Justin Hawkins squint. “We love festival gigs the most as we don’t have to soundcheck,” yells Lovefoxxx, bouncing along the front row while the band blast through ‘Alala’, ‘Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above’ and a cover of L7's ‘Pretend We’re Dead’ dutifully. If this is what a lack of soundchecking does, then perhaps its time to kill that tradition for good.
Gigwise is then hit with a pretty horrible dilemma. No, not whether to buy herbal drugs or hang on for the real thing, but who to watch out of LCD Soundsystem on the main stage and Klaxons in the tent. In the end, it’s a question of logistics as much as who we’d rather see, as a good spot for LCD is likely to mean a prime vantage point for the headliners. Any disappointment at missing out on ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ is quickly obliterated, we can happily report. LCD Soundsystem are easily the best act to be performing fully live today, locking instantly into a groove that James Murphy is content to let roll and roll. When he eventually sings, it’s like Jim Morrison has returned from the dead (rock heaven would appear to have well-stocked cupboards, by the way) as he roars his way through ‘All My Friends’ and ‘Tribulations’. ‘Daft Punk is Playing in My House’, as well as having added significance today, is punked up and revitalised, while the classic ‘Yeah’ spirals and coils the set to its hypnotic, acidic end. Only something ridiculously special can follow.
Then, the unthinkable happens. After a day of largely sublime music and weather, it begins to piss down. Only a rainbow to the left of the stage and an air of expectancy so thick you can almost see it suggest that good things lie ahead. Down come the curtains on the stage, and the damp wait begins. Word has arrived from people attending the London O2 Wireless yesterday that Daft Punk’s show was something to behold. Gigwise doesn’t need convincing, but the doubts nevertheless linger over Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s hunger for the electronic music game, particularly in light of the rush-job that was last album, ‘Human After All’.
And still we wait. There must be a lot going on behind that stage. But what’s that sound? It’s the theme from ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ – and the curtain is beginning to fall. The top of what appears to be an illuminated pyramid pokes above the lowering fabric, which falls further to reveal a mesh of glowing bars arranged like some kind of triangular honeycomb. This continues as the curtain moves ever-further down, until, halfway down the pyramid, the blocks are cut away to reveal our robot-masked heroes, speaking the words “Human… Robot… ” over the booming notes.
The grounds of Hareham House then explode with the first power chord of the almighty ‘Robot Rock’. No sooner have our feet landed on the increasingly sticky floor than have our jaws followed them, so stunned are we by the sight before us. Two robots playing 21st-century disco from a huge shining pyramid, flanked by two huge flashing webs of triangles and with a 50 ft screen pulsing behind them – its as if Prince joined Kraftwerk and asked Muse to construct a light show using whatever Jean Michel Jarre was too frightened to plug in. After this, Hareham House will have an electricity bill the size of Las Vegas'.
Musically, many acts would be dwarfed by the spectacle, but Daft Punk are possibly one of a few around the world (excuse the pun) who are able to match the lunacy of this scale. Gigwise tries to keep pace as ‘Technologic’ interweaves with ‘Voyager’, or ‘Television Rules The Nation' blends into ‘Crescendolls’, but it’s impossible. The notepad is discarded as the Parisians switch between classics such as ‘Da Funk’, ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’ and even Stardust’s ‘Music Sounds Better With You’ with almost playful abandon. They tease the awestruck crowd with glimpses of favourites, like when the treated guitar arpeggios of ‘Aerodynamic’ drop in from nowhere, and batter them with percussive onslaughts such as the unforgiving ‘Steam Machine’ and ‘Alive’. Visually and sonically, this reviewer has rarely encountered anything this perfect.
It might well be the case that you have now seen Daft Punk’s London on television, or seen excerpts on YouTube. If so, you’ll have a fair idea of what kind of eye-gasm this set was – you may even have loved the way Bangalter and De Homem-Christo blended the sounds of their three albums together to create what could well have been the house music equivalent of The Beatles’ Love album. But really, to appreciate this sight in its energy-sapping beauty, you had to be there. You really, really did. If you were not, then you owe it to yourself not to let the chance pass you by again.
