Virgin Trains Move Festival 2004: Thursday

(Warning, the following was written by VF's resident Scouser!)

Blimey O'Reilly, guv, and no mistalk, Noughteners n Mancs in a crikkit grumble for bands n stuff. Woi woi? Sprightly thought innit? You'll be astonishifticated to realise the working of this is good an totally under the thrall of How To Do Things, cos hip hip when your Virtual Festivals (Thursday Edition) spamgrunts his way into Old Trafford it am a swirling maelstrom of crap burgers and grinning music boingers. Diggin it. Diggin it.

Cause them nice-cheeked and stupendous sprawl-funx Ozomatli's groovin on the off beat and movin them LA stylings of Afromashin', cymbal-splashin, tiptaplatin hyperflashin hips in a way that h'ain't bin seen round no parts of mine for a longster, boy. Smiling we are, smiling and dancing, cause we've flubbered our cranky way into the midst of 2000 shooter-eyed musical scamps, and Ozomalti have come down from the mong-high stage and dived directly into the crowd just to see us, with their trombones an their snares and their wayyyyooayy and the party has GODDAMN STARTED for sure. Yip! Yip!

On the tea we are, on the hot sweet tea, the same colour as the Trafford sky. No beer yet. No need. Too excited. Too much tension. Too much bemusement at the surroundings. So, tea only. And so. Sweep forward The Stranglers. The Stranglers. Bully boy dafthead swivel-dicked dimbos that they are. And too old to get those shirts off. TOO OLD! Cor granddad put em away will ya? Mind, that fuckin 'Golden Brown' is a moment of fabulousness. And these days even surly, spiky, speedy JJ wobbles about playin them too-much-treble-basslines and SMILES. Nasty fun as ever tho. As ever. Stranglers. Loving it. Jet Black's got all the drum patterns written down on random pieces of paper, lovingly highlighted where the fills change and the like. And he looks like a Jabba The Hut pre-morning shave. Rargh! Watch out Leia, he's GOT A CHAIN ROUND YOUR NECK. Heheheh, and stuff

Old / New / not Hugh goshawk-singer Paul Roberts suppresses a shiver when he Zorros off his billowin' shirt. But y'know. Hard lad, hard rock, pub rock, fuck rockers ain't allowed to be cold, even given the gooning threat of the rain-heavy skies above, so there's no way he's putting it back on, even if he's poking the front two rows in the face with his erect nipples. No 'No More Heroes', the bastards, but then I guess that's essentially an irony in itself. And the new material from 'Norfolk Coast' is possibly the best since they went all Pulp in 1983 or thereabouts, so we's happy when they fuck off cos they've had fun. We've had fun. We've tarted along to totally-inappropriate 'Peaches'. Politically. Weather-contexted. Cause it's Manchester in July. What d'ya want? Sun? SUN? Sun's for SOUTHERNERS, mate.