Photo: WENN.com
London’s Electronic Dance Festival opened its gates for the very first time on Saturday - the very same gates in fact as Lovebox earlier this summer. Putting a new festival on is always a gamble, but competing against heavyweights on the August Bank Holiday weekend such as SW4, Creamfields and Reading/Leeds is like challenging Spiderman to a wall climbing contest.
Tonight’s highlight is Soulwax by such a distance it isn’t even funny. On at 7.30pm, the Ghent four piece tease in NY Excuse’s synth in early doors before saving the full version complete with cowbell for the set clincher. The grungy ‘Miserable Girl’ and the pulsating ‘E Talking’, despite being 6-years old, sound as fresh as ever. Playing live is what festivals are all about. Write that down L.E.D., there’s more to come. Unfortunately that is about it for this evening’s entertainment.
L.E.D. followed the formula often used by new festivals. Blow the budget on a handful of big names in order to sell a lot of early tickets. A Cream Tent was announced then cancelled, presumably on poor sales; Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso never making it to East London. A smarter move would’ve have a been to have one tent of emerging talent which would have cost the same as Dave Guetta’s food rider, then having a fourth tent of local artists who would have played for nothing and brought their own crowd. For a £40 day ticket or £70 weekend, there was a Main Stage with no DJ in-between changeovers and one Tent the other end of the field.
Over to the Main Stage for 6pm and the imminent arrival of Soulwax, except it’s not Soulwax, it’s Calvin Harris. They’ve swapped set times but there is no official announcement and the vendors continue to sell out of date set lists regardless.
Calvin “I make my tunes in my Mom’s bedroom“ Harris takes less than 15 minutes before he plays one of his own records, ‘You Used To Hold Me.’ ‘I’m Not Alone’ follows 20 minutes later and were treated to another rendition of ‘Satisfaction.’ He can’t be arsed and neither can we, as much of the crowd head back to the bar. On a positive note, the set change has worked well because by half 7 a decent crowd has turned up for Soulwax, even if they might have been expecting Calvin.
A walk over to Planet Turbo Tent was well timed as Tiga smashed in his track ‘You Gotta Want Me’ before a walk back saw David Guetta close Friday night with his typical Parisian (un)subtlety. Not content with being on the Main Stage, Guetta brings his own to sit on top complete with fairy lights that spell out thoughtful refrains such a ‘Put Your Fucking Hands Up’ and ‘Sexy Bitch.’ In-between more budget electro, he lazily drops gems such as ‘Simian vs. Justice – We Are your Friends,’ Snap’s ‘Rhythm is a Dancer’ and the Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s ‘Otherwise.’ Soccer AM’s David Ghetto would’ve done a better job.
Tune of the night was without doubt Soulwax’s sample of Samantha Fu’s ‘Theme From Discotheque’ over the top of their remix Human Resource vs 808 State. ‘Pounding, Pounding, Techno Music.’ If only there had been more of it.
