Wireless Festival London - Day Three

United Kingdom | | 23 June 2006

First on the main stage is Metric, a three-piece from Canada who keep a sparse crowd entertained with some fine Yeah Yeah Yeahs-style garage rock. Vocalist Emily Haines writhes and snakes around the stage shouting something about how movie scripts don’t like her in a ten-minute guitar cacophony to end their set - highly entertaining and not the usual early-afternoon filler act.

The crowd is still a bit thin on the ground as most people wait to leave work before heading to Hyde Park but Gnarls Barkley provide an intriguing set for those who escape early. Dressed in red judo outfits and with Danger Mouse apparently armed with only a set of basic my-first-Casio-style keyboards, they play several tracks from their album, St Elsewhere, including a rousing version of ‘Crazy’ and the funky as hell 'Gone Daddy Gone'. Singer Cee Leo is clearly pumped up for this performance, treating the crowd to a peep of his belly and sardonically teasing them throughout. (Click on the photo for the set list).

London rapper Sway reels off a tight set in the Xfm tent helped along with the sort of enthusiastic crowd you can only find crammed into a sweaty marquee in the corner of a festival field. Ending the set by asking “Who’s gonna buy my new album” got a muted response, asking “Who’s gonna download my album off iTunes?” got a bit more of a cheer whilst “Who’s gonna illegally download my album?” bought the roof down. Naughty us, says Sway, how’s he going to put food on his plate and shoes on his feet? He treats us to a little rap about the error of our downloading ways before leaving the stage.

Pharrell has a few friends to help him out and the late afternoon sun provides the perfect setting for some of his greatest hits including 'Frontin' and 'Drop It Like Its Hot'. A guest appearance by UK beatboxer Killa Kela leaves the crowd confused with his aural brilliance - what's coming from his mouth and what's being played by the backing band? Most people have no idea but it sounds great and Pharrell’s upbeat style suits the moment well. The hiphop star bounds around the stage with all the gusto and confidence you'd expect finishing the set on two well received N*E*R*D songs, including the mighty 'She Wants To Move'. 

With the sun going down and afternoon turning into evening, The Flaming Lips stack the stage with assorted purple aliens, men in Santa suits and giant inflatable robots (sadly not pink) and launch into a grandiose set complete with confetti cannons, some classic album tracks and a vocally flat but crowd-friendly cover of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. At this point I suspect Wayne Coyne confuses one evergreen Queen track with another, possibly ‘We Are The Champions’, as he announces "We were told not to play this if the football World Cup wasn't going well. But because it is…we're going to play it!" No Wayne, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ has nothing to do with football, nice try though.

Massive Attack headline the day but they don’t suit the mood after some really fun, uplifting sets from the earlier bands. They look like vegan monks from a remote Scottish island, dressed in no-fun beige and grey, and the first half of their set sounds like it was performed with the no-fun moniker in mind. Certainly the ranting on about the BNP is never a great way to lighten the mood. Things do get better though and after a trawl through some of their less inspiring tracks the crowd erupt as the familiar chicken skin hook from ‘Unfinished Symphony’ echoes around Hyde Park. A great end to a day of music that needed the sun to shine. It did and so did most of the acts.