Isle Of Wight Festival 2013 Review
THURSDAY:
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Happy Mondays and The Farm ensured that the festival got off to a storming - rather than stormy - start on a sunny and glorious day that was, thankfully for the promoters, light years away from the rain-soaked pandemonium of 2012. The Farm were the first of a holy trinity of Madchester sheened heavyweights to grace the festival this year, warming up the Big Top for Happy Mondays and setting the scene for The Stone Roses to headline the Main Stage on Friday. By the time the Pachelbel-esque descending chord sequence of All Together Now kicked in the Liverpudlians had already won the crowd over, proving they were far from a one-track pony. Frontman Peter Hooton explained to an emotional crowd how the song referenced the World War Christmas Day Truce in 1914, when British and German soldiers threw down their weapons to play football together. A lot of grown men had tears in their eyes at this point - but that was almost certainly the wind. Happy Mondays boasted the same line-up that appeared on their seminal 1987 debut (and Rowetta), an album that galvanised a UK indie scene still licking its wounds after the rancorous departure of The Smiths. Ryder looked his age but was on form with his uncooked brand of urban alt-rock and uniquely accentuated delivery, working up the crowd by meandering between Mondays-esque sharp inspired imagery and borderline incomprehensibility. A maracas-toting Bez curiously only danced to three tracks, but flung himself around the stage with gusto like a man twenty years younger; if anyone knows this guys chiropractor please let us know. The band saved their baggiest grooves for set-closer Step On, during which strangers hugged, locked arms and screeched back every word.
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