Sunday 23/07/06 Day 2 @ Lovebox Weekender, Victoria Park, London

Oh yes. It's vivacious, not too commercial and tonnes of fun. And this year it’s even bigger. And like all the best festivals you can spend a lot of your day wandering about, absorbing the atmos. So while my patience was tried on the previous day at Lovebox by the 1 hour 30 cash point queue, I was placated by Mr Scruff's delicious teepee which was flanked by a Sangria stall. There are so many little corners to find pleasant extraordinaires, like Right Said Fred's Richard Fairbrass joining VJ's Eclectic Method, or Lily Allen materialising with Mark Ronson.

Kill All Hippies have taken over one of the larger tents, and one band we catch during the day are The Rumble Strips, who have a tight, honest stage act. Lead vocalist Charlie Waller is imploring in his conveyance of their whirlwind of tracks, and it's a fun, vibrant performance with a honky-tonk piano edge. There are even touches of bluegrass peeping through the well-considered rhythms, and the sax and trumpet make welcome appearances next to Charlie's clean vocals. The band are promising, but it would be good to see them have even more fun on stage to match their frivolous musical style. The Rumble Strips could turn into one of the best fun time bands with their rousing rhythms, and it would be great to see them go wild.

Blondelle are, erm, very noisy and young. And that's good I guess, I mean rock is meant to be noisy and young. It just all seems a bit much, and a bit messy. And noisy. They're not helped by some awful issues with their levels, but it's clear that they could do with some decent bass to cement them together. They're not bad considering they're fresh from the potty, but there is a bad Led Zeppelin complex here that suggests they might improve in a few years. And even worse, we barely have time to nip to the bar before catching The Feeling.

Despite their worrying closeness in image to more middle of the road bands, behind The Feeling's clean cut image is a brilliant combination of harmonies and rhythms which have great hooks to boot. While their fare is quite pedestrian for a festival on occassion, they are not disappointing live, with their next single ‘Never Be Lonely’ and their first release ‘Sewn'
proving to be highlights. Let’s just hope they continue down the Supertramp / ELO route of similarity rather than by succumbing to the Keane trend and starting to wear deck shoes. If you live in fear of the latter, The Feeling are a band well worth listening to, and really work on their songwriting over their image.

The Gogol Bordello tent is mental. Following on from the Edward Lear garbled warblings of the eclectic Larrikin Love, the tent is packed to the rafters with fans awaiting the infamous gypsy punks (apparently an accordion has gone walkabout a promoter tells me). Once it starts however, it's like being trapped in Moulin Rouge, and its no surprise the crowd go berserk at the advent of the sprightly, raucous set. We then try to watch Battle but get distracted by the jerk chicken stall (yum), and the ice cream man appears and it all goes downhill from there involving Ferris wheels and things that spin and make your ears go pop. It is with a perambulatory stagger that we bumble over for the finale of the weekend. Jamiroquai is everything you would expect him to be, funky and fresh. With a fully scale band to back him up, the set takes on a Latino calypso edge perfect for the weather. It has to be said though, not as good as Groove Armada the previous night. Although, a hell of a lot of cider warmed us up a bit. Despite this, Jamiroquai do really work on their live act, and have a great range of funky experimentation going on. What more could you want on a summer's day? Could Lovebox be the festival of the year?