Sunday 24/06/07 Day Two @ Knowsley Hall Festival, Liverpool

After the tremendous downpour during The Who’s set yesterday, and hearing about the mud-fest at Glastonbury, one can only imagine what the 2,500 acres of Knowsley Hall green grounds will be like today. It comes as no shock to anyone that a turgid sea of brown greets today’s festival attendees with mud-caked party folk and security check after security check. Anxieties are beginning to rise about being able to get some chicken sandwiches that are lodged between lenses in a camera bag into the event. This worry is soon put into perspective when an angry security rejected gentleman shouts ‘check his bag for a bomb’. The sandwiches just about made it past the metal detectors. Phew!

The ground where people yesterday lay resting is now a stinking swamp, and the inflatable couches that were being used to keep peoples dry from the SLIGHTLY damp grass, are now being used as surf boards to swoop across the mud. Despite all this, the atmosphere amongst the growing crowd is bright and nobody seems to be letting a little thing like rain ruin the second day of this inaugural festival.

Ross Copperman’s rather subdued but pleasing set is the first to greet Gigwise after the traffic queus and intense security searches. An adequate size assembly of mainly female fans has already gathered at the front of the stage. And noticeably a couple of early teen girls stand out singing all the lyrics to ‘All She Wrote’.  Even though Ross Copperman is a relatively new kid on the block compared to the majority of artists playing here today, he is most certainly hitting all the right notes…literally.

The crowd are beginning to warm up in this cold damp field and the evening promises to be a lively one. Rumour has it that Joss Stone has ended a press photo call early due to having a bad day. There’s excitement in the press pit that there will be an injection of diva to the stage when we see how Joss copes during her Soul Sessions on a bad day.

Despite Joss Stone’s bad day, the songstress bounces onstage, barefoot and in bright colours following a big-me-up introductory song sang by her backing singers. This is probably reflecting her latest album ‘Introducing Joss Stone’. The Devon singer isn’t a representation of the favoured music taste here today, and across the way, a crowd is slowly herding towards the Aeroplanes on the Myspace stage. But Joss does raise some eyebrows with her cover of Gnarls Barkleys ‘Crazy’ as well as her overly recognisable radio classics ‘fell in love with a boy’ and ‘super duper love’.

It’s almost time for more mud, music and madness…with Madness as Graham ‘Suggs’ McPherson,  Mark Bedford, Daniel Woodgate, Mike Barson, Lee Thompson, Carl Smyth and Chris Foreman (breathe out) enter the main stage to the Star Odyssey theme. How do you prepare for the wacky energy explosion that is Madness? What better opening track than ‘One Step Beyond’? This group are so much more than only one step beyond anything on this planet. Suggs is striking one-legged poses midway through eccentric dances. He occasionally tips his head back to peep at the crowd underneath his sunglasses. Over quarter of a century since their first single, they are still managing to rock a crowd. Huge tracks like ‘Baggy Trousers’ and ‘House of Fun’ go down as well as can be expected. The crowd near the back, for some reason, are dancing like confused, marching penguins to these tracks. It doesn’t come as much of a shock to see that the daddy penguin Suggs is leading this tribal dance on stage with some of his fellow band members.