Barclaycard Wireless Festival, Sunday 4th July 2010

We make the fateful trip to Hyde Park for one last time, with the weather cloudy and potentially foreboding - a portent for the day itself? It certainly seems that way when observing Friendly Fires - or rather, observing the crowd for Friendly Fires. Wireless’ main flaw comes to the fore once again with it’s bizarre scheduling. On what is widely regarded as the ‘hip hop’ day, Slash and Friendly Fires play the main stage to a crowd made up of people who: a) barely know who they are, if at all; and b) wouldn’t cross the road to see them. It’s no surprise therefore that they struggle. Boy, do they struggle. The dancing of singer Ed Mcfarlane, normally a drawing point, goes down like a lead balloon and we hear several around us deride him. The songs fall flat despite their quality, even ‘Kiss Of Life’ failing to inspire more than a vague swaying from sections of the crowd. The frustration on the bands part is visibile, Ed urging the crowd to move in desperation, scenes akin to Damon Albarns pleas when Gorillaz headlined Glastonbury. The band don’t play badly (though it must be said they don’t play with any real conviction either) but the crowd are clearly there to get a good spot for Lily Allen and Jay Z. Even the introduction of the by-now requisite samba dancers for ‘Jump In The Pool”s conclusion bring only a fraction of the reaction it would normally elicit. McFarlane barely musters the sincerity to thank the audience and to be honest, he can’t be blamed. It was an uncomfortable set to watch, with the tension building after each song - in the worst way possible.

For tension building in the best way, Chase & Status provide an exemplary set. They have now expanded to a full band when playing live, reminiscent of Pendulum. The main difference however is that while Pendulum are bloody good fun live, on record they’re about as cheesy and predictable as drum and bass can get. Chase & Status put their album out on Ram Records, Andy C’s label (widely recognised as the pinnacle of his art) and it was lauded as one of the finest drum & bass albums for years. With a full band playing the material live, its quality on record is matched by the ferocity of its performance. It. Is. Mental. The tent is filled to breaking point with people jumping, pushing, slamming - even a circle pit emerges in the middle of the crowd. The main difference being usually circle pits are filled with lank haired skinny white boys: drum and bass circle pits seem to be filled with an array of men who share one characteristic - being built like brick shithouses. Oh, and 10 year old boys who start breakdancing in the middle of it all. Just when you think it couldn’t get any more surreal, angriest man in grime (and that’s a hotly contested title) Tempa T comes on stage to perform the ‘Saxon Hype’ (mashup of Chase & Status’ ‘Saxon’ with his own ‘Next Hype’) and his vicious bars incite even more physical reactions from the crowd. If it had been the weather of the day before, there would have been dozens fainting in the heat and the intensity of it. Tempz removes his shirt halfway through, looking like he’s ready to crowdsurf his way to the circle pit and break some heads but fortunately security intervene when he gets within touching distance of the crowd. Admittedly the set peters out somewhat after his appearance but only because to keep it at the intensity it reached would have seen casualties. A finale of ‘Pieces’ with Plan B’s vocals sampled sees a momentary calm before the storm of its frenetic conclusion. It was brilliant. The performance of the weekend.

Which makes it difficult to be objective about Jay Z’s headline slot. Because, put simply, he wasn’t very good. We’ll be honest, we’re not the biggest fans of Jay Z in the world but we know all the singles and a few tracks off ‘Reasonable Doubt’. The one thing we did expect from the biggest hip hop artist on the planet is that he’d know how to put on an entertaining show, beyond anything else. This he did not. So yes, he played everything you’d expect: ‘99 Problems’ was enjoyable enough, ‘Dirt Off Your Shoulder’ was good. But the thing is, those songs are good recorded and heard on the radio every other day. What we expected was for this to be BETTER than what you heard on the radio. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. It was just… meh. Dull. No charisma, no spark, no ingenuity, no nothing. What we realise today is that Jay Z going through the motions is the same as anyone else going through the motions. A real shame that such a drab performance is the conclusion of the three days.