O2 Wireless 2007 (London): Thursday Review

United Kingdom | by Steve McConville | 15 June 2007

‘Festivals’ and ‘style’ don’t usually get uttered in the same sentence but the 02 Wireless Festival in London and Leeds shouts them both in the same breath.  The festival is only two years old but it’s already set itself as the festival for those who prefer their own shower and bed at the end of a hard night’s gigging.

This year’s stellar line-up is the strongest so far with The White Stripes making their only UK appearance of the year.  There’s no doubt that the lovely people at 02 are going for broke to get this 4-day extravaganza firmly established on the summer festival calendar.

Thursday is traditionally the most ‘rock’ of all the dates with previous headliners including Kasabian and The Strokes, and this year proves no exception.  Jack and Meg’s headline slot is backed by ample support from Queens Of The Stone Age and Perry Farrell’s latest project The Satellite Party.

The festival kicked off with a distinctly Scandinavian feel as Denmark’s The Kissaway Trail, Sweden’s  The Sounds and, somewhat bizarrely, seventies pop-punk outfit The Only Ones all make the bill.

The Only Ones have been out the game for 25 years and its only the elder statesman in the audience who seem to appreciate their re-forming.  The rest (and it’s fair to say majority) of the crowd do seem a little bemused that the senior staff from a B&Q warehouse have hit the stage for their entertainment. This is briefly forgotten when young ears perk up to their biggest hit ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’ which has recently been rekindled for an advertising campaign by a company 02 would deem a ‘rival’.

Following them is an interesting experiment from Perry Farrell’s The Satellite Party who come across more Lame’s Addiction then Jane’s Addiction. Crashing around the stage sounding like an over indulgent Guns n Roses, the band seem to think that playing shirtless with a melee of raunchy dancers until their fingers bleed is what everyone has paid to see. It isn’t, ‘hair rock’ disappeared years ago as Perry Farrell’s corset should have.

Josh Hommes and his heavy, relentless rock buddies don’t mess around and Queens Of The Stone Age’s set bruises the audience with their infamous bass driven sound. ‘The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret’ and ‘Little Sister’ go down a storm, with brutish drummer Joey Castillo thundering the drums so much one wonders if his arms are going to end up as a bloodied tattoo-ed mess on the floor. ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’, with it’s unusually ‘anthemic’ lyrics is irresistibly received by the young crowd and while Homme is not the voice of a generation, he certainly exudes a swagger that demands full attention from start to end.

Headliners The White Stripes stomp onto the stage as evening becomes night.  It’s hard to come up with a superlative for Jack White now. He’s long since surpassed the skills of many of the guitar heroes of yesteryear and tonight proves to be no exception. Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Brian May and other 70s rock gods would have only looked on in awe at Mr White and his ex-wife this evening.  How the unlikely pairing make as much noise as a NASA spaceship taking off is one of the world’s unanswerable questions.

From opener ‘Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground’ to the encore’s ending, ‘7 Nation Army’ you cannot help but fall in love with them both. It’s been said innumerable times, but Jack is a one man powerhouse – it is genuinely frightening to think just how much this man just personifies ‘rock’. Latest single helping ‘Icky Thump’ merely emphasises this point, its guitar is grubbier then a pair of workman’s hands yet every bit as catchy as all that’s gone before it. 

Forget E=MC2, The White Stripes have surpassed Einstein’s genius with a thumping formula that must’ve been handed down from God himself in his Hendrix days. Meg’s solo ‘In The Cold Cold Night’ allows her to grab her much deserved spotlight but there’s no doubt tonight belongs to her brother/husband/band member.  Quite simply, there hasn’t been a guitarist this exciting or prolific since young Robert Johnson returned from those crossroads.

While in previous years O2 Wireless has featured the best of the rock pretenders, this year demonstrates that the festival has come of age with a towering headline set from one of the best rock acts of this or any other generation.