Music Festival #1- Lovebox Weekender

It's been an awesome summer so far: so much so that I haven't had time to write about any of it! But being Bank Holiday weekend I have a lot of spare time on my hands and can afford to spend some time reasserting my dominance on the blogosphere! I'll start at the beginning...

Before this summer I had never been to a music festival. Travesty for a music fan, isn't it! You see the thing is that before this summer, I had never really even been to many gigs. It never really appealed to me to go to see bands live, I preferred to go to the big clubs and see all my favourite DJs and MCs instead. Unfortunately, this means that I haven't really seen a lot of my favourite bands, and now some of them have broken up (Everclear, Rage Against The Machine and so on). In this regard, summer of 2007 has been very good for my outlook towards music.

The two main reasons that caused me to go to more gigs this year are firstly that after 10 months in the music backwaters of Spain, my appreciation for the music scene in England exponentially increased. Secondly, I basically just jumped on the bandwagon with my mates, who have all been busy following their own favourite genres.

However, the first music festival I attended was actually my discovery: Lovebox Weekender in Victoria Park, East London organised by the band members of Groove Armada. I'm not sure if it counts as my first music festival though, as it is not possible to camp there and I only went for the second day of it (but let's not dwell on technicalities). I went along with a mate who knew some of the bands on the line-up that I didn't, so I was going to come away from the festival having learnt some new music, which is always nice!

The first thing we noticed in the festival was a converted Routemaster (the old London double-decker red buses for those not in the know). Upon further inspection it turned out to be a MySpace stage!!! Inside all the downstairs seats had been ripped out and they had a small space for a band or DJ. We saw a band called Tiny Dancers play an acoustic set; quite cool indeed and made cooler by being right up close to them. Definitely a fan of this concept!

Over the course of the day we saw some good new music and some excellent older stuff. Bands like Good Shoes, Adem, Hot Chip (awesome!) and Nouvelle Vague. I must say a personal highlight for me was that I got the chance to finally see Diplo DJ live. In fact, the whole reason I found out about Lovebox was due to examining his tour dates for this summer, as he is American and therefore not always touring Europe. He didn't disappoint, playing a sick little 50 minute set in front of a very up-for-it crowd. I think there were quite a few people who like me had specifically gone to see him, as they really were loving every single tune he put out!

The final set of the weekend was by the organisers themselves, Groove Armada. I'd always liked their tunes, without being a fan per se. However after seeing them live, I have to say I absolutely loved it! They instantly got the crowd in the party mood and have a cracking live sound. Not particularly inspiring analysis I'm afraid, but I'm not a journo, just a mere blogger!