Sunday 25/06/06 Day 5 @ Wireless Festival, Hyde Park, London

We all know festivals are about the music, man.  Well, that’s not strictly true: they’re also about drinking too much overpriced booze from warm paper cups, bizarre urges to wear stupid hats (for those ker-azee types) and today, football.  The good people of Wireless have set up an impressive screen next to some equally impressive death-dodging, vomit-inducing fairground attractions, thus splitting allegiances between patriotic soccer types (read: predominantly large, beery men in synthetic shirts), and people who disregard this for some peaceful band watching (read: predominantly girls).  Therefore, for two hours, much legwork is required in order not to let either side down, as it were.

Polytechnic kick-off pre-football proceedings, and, justifiably championed by The Longcut, they’re a band not to miss.  Their catchy line in epic pop makes up for what they lack in stage presence and a thinner-than-an-Olsen-twin crowd seems won over.  Regrettably, Gigwise contributes to the audience deficiency faster than you can say ‘Slimfast’ on discovering the aforementioned large screen.  However, this proving to be Keane-level dull, The Fratellis beckon with Scottish charm and swagger.  With a rabble rousing ‘Creeping Up the Backstairs’, brutal percussion and lone-dancing are the order of the day.  The lines “Do your utmost to please me/I don’t mean to be sleazy” are fantastically fitting: they achieve the first to the full, and teasingly defy the second.  The Fratellis are gorgeously sleazy.  Head to toe in black topped with a la mode big hair, the lead singer carries the charismatic nonchalance of a Scottish Casablancas.  Gravel paved vocals make boys green with envy and indie-girls swoon: they are possible even cooler than Crouch’s robot dance.  And that’s very cool.

Interspersions of a less charismatic football match and the acquired taste of Thomas Dolby follow.  Those that have dragged themselves to the main stage seem to be loving it: a generally less than enthusiastic crowd are even cajoled into some mild bouncing to his pioneering electro. Visuals of false teeth and bananas accompany, naturally.  By this point, Gigwise has totally given up on sitting through Ecuadorians running around, and The Dears take over.  They claim to be “kinda bummed” to be on at same time as the football.  Unfortunately this reflects on what could be a brilliant show, but slightly tinged with ennui end cool.  ‘The death of all the romance’ and ‘lost in the plot’ breeze beautifully across the Hyde Park humidity.  Vocals are pretty and plaintive, and by the end you even get the impression they might be beginning to enjoy themselves.

As the muggy evening grows dim, relentless, haunting chants of ‘zoo time’ echo and the Mystery Jets magic spreads.  Their characteristic carnival electricity is somewhat lost to a festival, but there’s definitely something enchanting afoot. Launching into the intoxicating barrage of the song in question, this is no case of theatrics and contrived scrap percussion oddities over content.  The breakingly precise beats and clamorous, intense harmonies compliment their junk-shop charm resulting in an incongruously optimistic catalogue of genre evading songs: ‘The Boy Who Ran Away’ and ‘Purple Pose’ nestle delightfully along with a new song about “being half in love with one person, and half in love with someone else.”   ‘You can’t fool me Dennis’ whisks you away with its gloriously catchy, uniting chorus.  It’s the instantly blissful Thames shanty of ‘Alas Agnes’, however, that proves the climax of the joyous scrapheap of a set. If you ever dreamed of running away from corporate festivals to join the real carnival, this is unquestionably the one to join.