Clapham Common had a distinctly greasy, not really slept yet, feel to it on Sunday afternoon as Get Loaded finished off the park’s weekend of music.
The rock n roll day-long festival boasted a pretty damn impressive and varied line-up, and the event SOLD OUT the day before! So come Sunday the 20,000 crowd seemed to fill up every nook and cranny the area had.
Double-jointed-throat geezer Beardyman was on in the dance tent early doors and every time you see him, he makes you feel pretty bad about yourself. The guy has more talent in his vocal chords than the entire Premier League have in their feet. Performing what essentially an entire orchestra, sampler and vocals all at the same time, yes the same time, all coming out of his mouth, (the best bit being when he ‘mixed’ the Superman theme into his beat), he’s a live act to cherish seeing.
Across the way on the Clash main stage Noah and The Whale attracted a big crowd for a first slot and his unique folk noise was, well folky as you’d expect, and hit the right chord with the audience. Belgian bastard pop pair Soulwax played some pretty dirty electro, which those with more than serotonin from the sun in their bloodstream lapped up in the dance tent, and The Maccabees had a huge audience for their set – it was absolutely impossible to get into their tent as they played and in return they got a rousing rendition of ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ back from the sweaty masses.
The main stage was a who’s who of bands who should be witnessed before you go deaf and blind and then die. Besuited Swedish rockers The Hives killed their set mixing up songs, ‘Tick Tick Boom’ et al, from their latest offering ‘Black and White’ album as well as favourites from their older records. Then, previous Clash Club headliners, Supergrass turned up in all their glory, playing a manic, raucous set before everybody’s favourite Romany-gypsy-New York-based-folk-punk band Gogol Bordello stamped and hollered their way all over one of London’s most MOR neighbourhoods, and pretty much won over all the residents.
Anyone wanting to pass the time between Bordello and the headliners by seeing Kate Nash in one of the tents would have been disappointed, as she hadn’t turned up 50 minutes after the programme told us she would. Whether or not she did I’m unsure as I left a crowd jeering at a laborious sound test and headed to get a good view of the one and only, and you can actually say that about him, Iggy Pop.
Backed by his band The Stooges he launched into a performance with voracity rarely seen in acts a third of his age. But then, that’s why you go and see Iggy Pop don’t you? And he didn’t disappoint, he even injured himself by falling awkwardly off a speaker stack – but for a man who’s famous for jumping stomach first onto a table of glasses, it was never going to keep him from finishing a set of which highlights, of course, included ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ and ‘Search and Destroy’. So tick Iggy Pop off the list – only another 54 bands to go and I can die.
This was live music as it should be. Rock n fucking Roll!.
