Hyde Park Calling 2007 - Saturday

United Kingdom | by Nick Bruce | 23 June 2007

Once again Hyde Park plays host to another weekend of superb music, albeit a rockier collection of artists when compared to the previous weekend’s O2 Wireless Festival. Gone are the glow sticks and iPods to be replaced by the tape recorders and leather jackets of a more mature audience.

With The Who – headliners on the opening day last year – having been promoted to the closing act at Glastonbury, it is down to legendary svengali and ex-Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel to headline Saturday at Hyde Park Calling. Gabriel is the genius behind the LSD-inspired acrobat extravaganza that wowed audiences for a year in the Millennium Dome so his performance should be a good’un.

Before he’s unleashed there are a crop of acts softer then Andrex toilet paper. That’s not to say they aren’t any good, it’s just that the festival toilets could do with some - clearly they forgot to re-stock after Wireless. The Thirst, a Brixton-based reggae-rock combo are the first act on stage and deliver a show that is raw and full of energy. Comparisons to Bloc Party are inevitable, but unfair and The Thirst are a decent outfit that deserves much interest.

Forever Like Red, in comparison, are a standard pub band with a strong line in cheesy choruses and predictable lyrics.  Their tunes are mostly clichéd, ‘Forever Like Red’ is a gentle ballad that is an amalgamation of every slow guitar-based number of the last five years.  ‘Breakdown’ is another down tempo song.  The piano based track is pleasant enough but nothing special.  It appears that unfortunately all the proper rock bands have migrated to Somerset for the weekend.

The soft-rock theme is continued with the bland Ghosts.  The band has been receiving a lot of air-play on Virgin radio with their single ‘Stop’ but they’re poppy, rocky nonsense is all synth-backing with chirpy vocals.  However a lot of dads in the audience happily hop along to Ghosts’ set.

More hopping material arrives with The Feeling taking the stage to repeat the exact set from Lovebox last year.  The band don’t seem to realise that songs like ‘Never Be Lonely’ and ‘Sewn’ have a shelf-life of about a month, and new material is always needed for the summer festival season. The quintet giggle and leap around like teenage girls who’ve drunk too much Kia-Ora.

Thankfully, New Zealand’s greatest export after the little bird that can’t fly enter the stage, and, as promised, Crowded House do bring the weather with them, because it starts to bucket it down.  Neil Finn cocks up the introduction to a couple of songs, but makes up for any errors by singing classic tunes, ‘Fall At Your Feet’ and ‘Better Be Home Soon’, as well as the obligatory ‘Weather With You’.  He even finds time to pick on the guy at the side of the stage who is translating every lyric into sign-language, asking him how he got onstage and whether or not he was trying to put him off. 
For someone who has toured the world and beyond, Mr Finn looks very nervous and unsure of himself. Still, the songs more than make up for his insecurities and the set is great. Plus it’s always nice to see fit blonde Kiwi girls with straw cowboy hats dancing around, half cut and singing along to ‘Pineapple Head’.

Finally the headliner takes the stage, and he’s a rather odd one at that. Murmurings suggested that Peter Gabriel wouldn’t draw in the numbers of last year’s festival and with Glastonbury booking all the best acts this year, he’ll have to do.   He’s a welcome distraction to the rain which is coming down so hard it is punching holes through umbrellas. 

Nevertheless Peter Gabriel has a plethora of classic tunes in his pocket, ‘Sledgehammer’, ‘In Your Eyes’, ‘Solsbury Hill’ and ‘Blood of Eden’, all of which are showcased here and in fine professional form.   This keeps the soaked crowd until the last encore is played before we trudge off toward the nearest tube with big smiles on our faces.