Friday 11/07/08 Paul Weller, Primal Scream, Soulwax @ EXIT Festival, Serbia

The main street on the walk up to the Festival was brimming with little bars and hastily erected stalls. There was cigs, sunglasses, glow-sticks and burgers as well as any drink combination imaginable; in fact, anything you needed was available on one of these two streets. House and electro pumps from sound systems you’d have to sell your car to buy and the liquor flowed freer than water down the Malvern Hills. For, presumably, ease of service, only beer, wine and water is available on site, which means the two strips are rammo right up until 2am. What follows is nothing short of breathtaking.

Paul Weller takes to the stage just after ten and looks cool as fuck as he sits fag in mouth centre stage. New single '22 Dreams’ lets the crowd know he’s still got it, as if they didn’t already know, but it was ‘Changing Man’ and ‘Eton Rifles’ that took the proverbial biscuit. Sitting pretty at fifty now there is doubt that the man Noel Gallagher called “Victor Meldrew with a suntan,” isn’t gonna be hanging up his guitar strings any time soon.

Primal Scream, although not as far down the line as Weller, are still on their way to rock majesty. Proving a little frustrating though they concentrated much of their set on their, as yet unreleased, new album before an absolutely killer finish of ‘Swastika Eyes,’ ‘Country Girl,’ ‘Rocks Off’ and ‘Movin’ On Up.’ The variety of the four left the crowd reeling and if only they’d mixed things up sooner their performance could have gone down as one of the greats.

Tiga’s set included ‘The Wash’ and ‘You Gonna Want Me’ as his heavily layered beats set up the baying crowd nicely for what was quite simply better than any of Paul Daniel’s magic tricks, including marrying Debbie McGee. Soulwax live are something to behold. Turning up ten minutes late there was some panicked faces that they weren’t going to show but the wide eyes and open mouths soon turned into wide eyes and grins the size of small countries. Their chunky bassline was relentless for an hour as they teased in and out the melodies and vocals of the stomping ‘NY Excuse,’ and the rock out ‘Miserable Girl.’ Their cover of Daft Punk’s ‘Robot Rock’ left everybody open mouthed once more and more than a little sweaty.

Laurent Garnier’s inclusion as next on the bill was a poor choice by the festival’s organisers – one of very few mistakes on their part all weekend – as his cultured deep house stylings just didn’t fit with what had befallen him. The Arena promptly emptied out and Gigwise headed over to the Happy Novisad Stage for the minimal delights of a certain Anja Schneider. Friday night also saw the re-appearance of a certain Eva Braun on the Fusion Stage. Although rumours that she covered ‘From Paris to Berlin’ remain unconfirmed at the time of going to press. 

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