L.E.D. Festival's baptism of water
Written By: Pete Adkins
L.E.D Festival – Saturday 28th August 2010 @ Victoria Park, London
by Joe Howlett
Daytime dance festivals are always difficult to pull off successfully – pumping basslines at lunch time and lights out by eleven seems a strange formula for a scene that has always revelled in seeing the sunrise, not sunset. This most obvious qualm - and it has to be said it is one of many - is perhaps why L.E.D Festival felt dead in the water before it even began.
L.E.D, when first announced, appeared to be a great concept. Whilst across London at South West Four legendary DJs spun house and techno sets, L.E.D was going to be the place for live performances and DJ sets from the bassy, grimy side of all things dance. Then, in the weeks preceding, everything seemed to fall apart; L.E.D came clean, announcing the cancellation of half of Friday’s acts and that only eleven performers would be present for Saturday – making for a very sparse bill indeed. Reports of poor ticket sales abounded, with L.E.D urging punters to sell tickets on their behalf through a tool on their website. The only good sign was the relatively dry weather forecast, an omen that eventually turned out to be a false one.
DJ Zinc drew the short straw, performing the first set of the day in the tiny Annie Mac Presents… tent (the only alternative to the main stage). As the crowds slowly traipsed in, Zinc, cementing his position as one of the most innovative DJs on the bass scene, performs one of the standout sets of the day. To about forty people. Without any performers on the main stage until much later in the evening, huge gaps of silence dominated both stages during crossover periods, with revellers lying on the damp grass, sipping beer and cursing themselves for bothering to turn up early. Eventually, the lacklustre Kids On Bridges took to the main stage, performing a set marred by technical problems and poor speakers. On the other side of the park, Shy FX performs a surprisingly poor DJ set rotating between dubstep, drum and bass, jungle and ragga, not allowing any sound to establish itself and resulting in a mix that felt disjointed.
As late afternoon arrives, south African hip-hopsters Die Antwoord take to the main stage and perform the first exhilarating set of the day. Whilst not everybody’s cup of tea, and suffering from the incredibly quiet soundsystem that marrs all proceedings, the band exerts an enthusiasm that seems to finally get some feet moving and heads nodding. Followed by the slightly wet Friendly Fires, atmospherics finally feel as if they are building to where they should be (despite the rain and the grey sky that seemed to infiltrate the mood of the crowd).
Annie Mac is soon spinning at her tent (where the soundsystem actually appears to be louder than the main stage – it certainly had better acoustics). Filling the tent with jamming bodies, she sweeps through a series of peak-time electro tracks from Fake Blood and Duck Sauce, before turning things into a wonky dubstep session. Following her, and performing the only standout set of the day, Aphex Twin takes to the decks, enticing so many to cram into the tiny tent that security started to barricade the entrance, blocking anyone from entering. Easing things in with some deliciously dark dubstep, Aphex offers a set of surprises as he’s joined on stage by Die Antwood, who MC over his selection of beats – everything from jungle to noisy offerings such as Wax The Nip, concluding in typical style with a selection of incredibly hard, fast, difficult tracks.
Through no fault of their own, Leftfield’s headline set seems to underline all that is wrong with L.E.D. The band work hard, offering some incredible re-workings of Open Up and 21st Century Poem, but the unbelievably quiet sound system and wet, uninterested crowd seemed to dampen what should have been an explosive finale. Encoring with a mind-blowing rendition of Phat Planet, Leftfield closed the festival at approximately 11PM, just when things, line-up and speakers permitting, could have got going.
At the heart of L.E.D is a great concept and some passionate organisers, and any first festival is going to have teething problems; yet L.E.D seemed to have more than its fair share. For it to succeed, L.E.D 2011 needs a new venue, a later licence, more performers, and above all a much louder speaker system (or somewhere with less stringent sound restrictions). With these ingredients, and regardless of its clumsy start, L.E.D could eventually become an essential Bank Holiday event.
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