Saturday 23/07/05 Day 1@ Lovebox Weekender

There's a form of epiphany that has been reached at the Lovebox Weekender. The festival has been moved to Victoria Park near Bethnall Green, a brilliant central location for the Groove Armada-hosted affair. Lovebox serves as a lesson that there is a whole history of dance, funk and electronica that has been somehow pushed to one side in more recent years. Amazing- a whole funkadelic lifestyle has been wrapped up and placed on a stage, and with London practically gagging to dance after the tribulations of the past few weeks, there is hardly a better place to be.
 
Saturday arrives sunny and bright. Lovebox is one of those festivals where the atmosphere is just as important as the acts. A fantastic BBQ is cooking up jerk chicken, whole coconuts and watermelon; possibly the best festival food ever. The queue is substantial, but there are so many alluringly amiable nutters wondering around offering you cookies (not those kinds of cookies), that no one minds. The Lost Vagueness tent is pleasantly packed and serving excellent raspberry daiquiris and mojitos. Later when a heavy rain sets in, the tents are even tighter, but Lost Vagueness brightens the mood by suddenly launching its burlesque cast into the can-can. By the time the rain is over, no one seems to want to leave.

The Strongbow tent is decked out to the high standard they've been setting at many of the festivals this summer. Saturday bizarrely sees Breakin' Bread MC-ing over Talking Head's 'Once in a Lifetime', and by five o'clock on the Sunday, Giles Peterson's set has invited a rather hedonistic crowd in. His set certainly keeps everyone dancing, although there's a great deal of pupil dilation going on in the tent.

Bugz in the Attic are another highlight, pumping out the funky beats they've become renowned for. Such is the engrossment level that the Cuban Brothers receive an unintended miss. Stumbling blindly from festival gimmick to stalls, Festivalwise happens upon the Fusion East tent which features short sets for new acts, and it is pretty interesting to see so many acts in such a short amount of time.

Realization sets in that a whole page of the festival programme has fallen off – shit!

There is no chance however of missing Mylo. Headlining on the Main Stage, Mylo seems to have turned up to the opening of an envelope this year. Since April, Festivalwise has become thrice familiar with this same old set.  At The Homelands Festival earlier this year, they followed Audiobullies, and frankly seemed like of a bit of an anti-climax. While Mylo's album is a credit to the dance industry, live, he lacks the rhythms that are necessary to the party atmosphere. Technically, all is well however, yet the need for more jerk chicken becomes overwhelming.