Isle of Wight Festival 2011 Saturday Review
Being awoken early doors by the sun beaming through our three man beast of a tent occupied by three beasts (not beasts) of men… Not to mention a hangover which could kill a small child! The first band on our lips was THE VACCINES! Considering it was early doors we decided to venture into Newport and pick up some necessary supplies, that’s right, more Beer, a Deck-Chair, Disposable BBQ, a funnel and a hose!!!
We got back around 12.30ish and quickly disposed of our food we picked up from Iceland (see it’s not just for Mum’s and Volcanoes). This is due to last night forking out £7 pound for a single fajita, once bitten twice shy and all’… (so tight)
2.35pm Big Top was our first band of the day…. What Did you Expect From the Vaccines? Is the name of their debut album, afterwards it was the question I was asking myself! I expected them to be decent, up and coming you know… Wow how wrong I was! They were sick (and not in the medical way) in the way cool kids say it!
With their album only out in March it was a surprise to see the 5,000 capacity tent over-flowing (yeah a surprise if you’ve never heard them. The crowd went mental at huge hits ‘Post Break-Up Sex’, ‘If You Wana’. Other singles from the album ‘Wetsuit’ and ‘Blow it Up’ were equally popular, both, already being echoed back at them by the thousands of people…. The Vaccines will be huge… watch their space!
We then left, popped to the bar and then decided to go make best use of the funnel and hose we had purchased! But before doing so, we popped into another one of the funky market stalls around the site… Commiting more crimes against fashion, we decided it would be ‘ledge’ to purchase Mexican Wrestler hats (Red, Green & Blue) and matching Tutu’s… Yes I know, Gok Wan’s already called, he’s furious! These stalls just suck you in haha!
After chugging down some pints and promptly chucking them up (schoolboy) The three essays (that’s our Wrestling name) found it was just about time for the next act we wanted to see! We left the safety of our camp and due to our costumes as previously mentioned the paps’ were all over us! We didn’t do a Jay Kay though and was loving the attention!!! We then got a Strongbow and a Barcadi Breezer quality if not camp combination and hit the Silent Disco for the first time!!!! Having quite large ears, the silent disco does me massive favours! Wearing a mask and a tutu does me little! Still it was a crack up…. Spice Girls, Bryan Adams, Dirty Dancing the DJs were cranking them all out! What a crack up!
We then returned to the Big Top for CHASE AND STATUS…. The guys who brought Dupstep mainstream! The Guys with that little album you know ‘No More Idols’! From start to finish they nearly took the roof of the Big Top Tent!
The Three Essays are proud to say we survived that set! It was like a Warzone! But in a good way (I’m not advocating war here just moshing)! The energy of the crowd was literally electric, and I haven’t sweated that much since well, since the last time I was very, sweaty! ‘Let you go’ and ‘time’ were legendary, with Deliah joining the boys on stage for the latter! Each song was blasted out with massive energy, you knew at every drop of the base the crowd was going to erupt! It was literally AWESOME! End Credits was quality… just gutted Plan-B didn’t join them! They had to stop at one point to advice on crowd safety, nobody cared as the atmosphere was crazy! They then ended with new single ‘Blind Faith’. Can’t wait to see them again when I go to Benicassim
We then made our way over to the main stage, just in time to catch the end of another comeback… that of Jarvis Cocker and Pulp! With their first show in the UK in 15years, when I was 7! It was well worth the wait! Jarvis is everything you need in a successful front man (sure he’s effin ugly and has bad hair) but wow can he perform, throwing sweets and bantering the crowd everyone was loving it! Common People was a massive highlight!
Crap how could my night get any better…. Hmmmm?
FOO FIGHTERS! It was a high-octane and hit-packed set from the Foos…. With ‘Monkey Wrench and the Pretender crowd favourites! Ending on ‘Everlong’ was like a dream! In the words of thousands ‘Dave Grohl is God’!!!! I don’t want to say too much more because if you’ve ever seen them you will already know ‘Wow’ is appropriate and if you havn’t all I can say is book a ticket while you can…. Ebay that shizzle!
After this and the warzone of Chase and Status cream-crackered was pretty much an understatement, and considering they didn’t sell glasses of ‘man-the –fuck-up’ we made it back to our tent for a solid night’s sleep!
We was pretty gutted to have missed Iggy and the Stooges, Seasick Steve and The Hurts but you can’t see them all and with so many great clashes and other things to do you can’t see them all [little-tears flowing right about now]!
