Knowsley Hall Music Festival 2007 - Sunday

United Kingdom | by Michelle Corbett | 24 June 2007

“Watch out there Joss, gerl!” tuts the Cream photographer as our eyes swivel to Ms. Stone’s feet. “Yer gonna wreck yer boots!” he warns. “That’s what they’re for!” giggles Joss - tossing her raspberry-swirl mane and disappearing into the back of her people carrier.

She can afford to be flippant. As the rest of us clumsily leg it through the mud and rain off to the Main Stage, she glides by - doubtlessly without a spec of muck on her florescent orange Uggs. Slighter than you would imagine, you nevertheless know that she has ‘Diva’ written through her like a stick of Blackpool rock. For 45 minutes, we’ve waited patiently for Joss Stone to emerge from her Port-a-Kabin - a slither of lime-green frock skimming her goose-bumped body. Time is ticking painfully and so our ’photo call’ is reduced to a quick pout and pose  before her ‘people’ whisk her away, mysteriously stretching the two-minute drive into yet another 15-minute delay before, finally, the phenomenon arrives...

Wandering on to the Main Stage - her hair clashing horribly with the iridescent violet backdrop - Joss takes the mic. “It’s wicked that you’ve all waited in the rain for me,” she drawls - her hands clasped in a Shakespearian gesture of gratitude. “I fucking love the rain! I don’t get to come home often so bring it on!”
Thanks. The Uggs have been banished as she leaps and prances barefoot - that voice having been specially drafted in from Motown. The annoyance factor is dumbed down as she treacles her way through a blistering showcase set which (sort of) justifies her alleged 11-page rider.

All too soon we’re booted out of the photo pit. As we trudge through the throngs in pursuit of our co-revellers, her voice travels with us - not a bum note or misplaced vocal insight. ‘Super Duper Lover’ is an unsurprising crowd-pleaser (and ‘You Had Me’ a curious omission) but offerings from her third album ’Introducing Joss Stone’ are equally well-received. Forthcoming video release ’Tell Me What We’re Gonna Do Now’ proves to be a syrupy singalong classic of its kind. All too soon it’s over and as she disappears back off to La La Land, the tension mounts.

Knowsley has yet to give birth to a defining moment and the day has laboured since our arrival at lunchtime. The grassy knoll has been mysteriously replaced by a veritable mud bath reminiscent of the Somme circa 1916. Waves of ill-prepared festival debutants have learned nothing from yesterday and still arrive in pristine footwear which the mud greedily chomps up. The inflatable sofa stall is turning over a tidy profit as customers prepare to set sail for the Main Stage across the murky bog. We find high ground at the MySpace Stage and stake our claim with a pilfered bin bag. Having bunked in, we refuse to move and are rewarded with a ringside seat for the fresh meat market.
 
Pretty-boy Jamie Scott is touted in the programme blurb as part Jeff Buckley, part Stevie Wonder - and like a good can of Ronseal, he does exactly what it says on the tin. We’re tantalised from our bin bag to a stage-front position where the female half of VF ogles gangling bassist Henrik, who smiles shyly. Drummer Karl cannot believe his smashing good luck to be at Knowsley and beams ecstatically throughout the shimmering set. The sound is bacon and egg sarnies on a Sunday morning when you’ve got bugger all to do all day. Lazy… promising… curiously upbeat. We’re singing along and we don’t even know the words. How cool is that?

Fast-forward to late-evening and to say the arrival of Madness onstage prompts wholesale lunacy is something of an understatement! Prim Liverpool lasses who have until this point carefully nurtured their white Macs and smashing blouses happily launch themselves into the mud within bars of opener ‘One Step Beyond’. In retrospect, this was the watershed moment when gripes about queues, mud and rip-off prices paled into insignificance and the festival spirit transcended the miles from Glastonbury to embrace us all.

“I hope there’s not too many cases of trenchfoot out there,” empathises Suggs -resplendent in navy pinstripes and ubiquitous sunnies. He’s in fine fettle - bantering with us in-between every little gem. “We’ve had some minor technical hitches” he begins with a wry smile. “Someone stole our drum kit just before we came on stage, which is a bit of shame. What time’s the next train?” It’s an opener for ‘Sorry’ which he concludes with: “All men say that don’t they? In a Hugh Grant sort of a way!” ‘Iron Shirt’ and ‘Bed & Breakfast Man’ follow before the pure joy levels disappear somewhere off the scale. “I’d like to say hello to The Zutons,” says Suggs. “Also to Pete from The Farmers.” It’s all a little surreal and then a totally unexpected nugget from The Prodigy’s back-catalogue - ‘Out of Space’ with a bona fide Madness makeover!

I’m on the fringe of a growing mud bath. Those who’ve already bathed in the green-grey goo begin a campaign of mud-slinging which entices more and more in. Suggs surveys the action from the stage and rewards us with foot-stomping classic ‘Baggy Trousers’. “How’s my hippy mate doing?” Suggs beams from the stage. “You can stop dancing now. The song’s ended. Wait for the next one!”
It sums up the mood perfectly as he primes us for another ska staple… “Take this home and stick it on your fridge!” ‘Our House’ follows with ‘It Must Be Love’ concluding the 15-song strong main set.
As the panic sets in at the prospect of an end in sight, ‘Madness’ and ‘Night Boat To Cairo’ keep the crowd nutty-dancing for several more glorious minutes.

By the time The Zutons frontman Dave McCabe takes to the stage, he’s seriously pissed off… And who can blame him? Never in her born days did Abi Harding suspect her Cowell-waisted hotpants  would have to compete with a bevy of greying middle-aged men sporting sizeable paunches… and still come off worse! “I know we’re not fucking Madness but that was fucking pathetic!” Dave laments as our cheers pale sheepishly in comparison. With THE definitive set of the weekend over (topping even the mighty Who’s sparkling two-hour opus the previous evening), The Zutons literally face ‘Mission Impossible‘.
Despite impassioned renditions of ‘Valerie’, ‘Why Don’t You Give Me Your Love?’, ‘Zuton Fever’, ‘You Will You Won’t’ and ‘Pressure Point’ - as well as a few more choice cuts from their own burgeoning collection of ‘Greatest Hits’ - the overwhelming feeling is that it just isn’t meant to be their night. With the stage set for a Zutons homecoming gig of gargantuan proportions (Dave lives just around the corner from the Hall apparently) this could have been a wholly different scenario for them had Madness not been released from their asylum.

Thank God Keane’s Tom Chaplin completed a stint in rehab for drink and drug abuse. He may have been tempted by the hard stuff once again just by the sight of Dave’s downcast jowls. Keane must feel like they are about to wade ‘Under The Iron Sea’ as the downpour threatens to drive everyone back to their cars prematurely. Luckily for us, behind the baby-faced veneer, Chaplin has steely resolve and refuses to let Madness hog all the limelight. His voice positively soars. Even within the confines of a Portaloo, the mud-caked acrylic walls resonate to ‘Everybody’s Changing’. This most unlikely of stadium bands have picked up where Coldplay left off and made angelic harmonies de rigeur where once synthetically enhanced codpieces and hair-metal reigned. We’re up to our knees in mud and yet we feel strangely regal. Main Stage, jaunty dad-dancing has been replaced with sedate mic-hugging and flailing piano-bashing as the festival’s maiden voyage ends with all onboard intact.

“Does it feel like a festival NOW?” our comrade asks us. We’re cold, wet and a million miles from miserable. “Oh yeah! Bring it on next year!”

Michelle Corbett and Christian Ewen