Monday 3 August 2009

Kendal Calling: Night 3

Much better night musically tonight, so well worth taking today off work to enjoy the activities.

I caught the end of Idlewild, with the sort of music that'll really get you going including A Modern Way of letting go - really enjoyable.

Then, I was in the pit for the final headliners Ash. I love being in the pit for two reasons - first of all if anything happens medically they land at your feet and you have no preparation time, it's a real rush. Secondly, it's the best view in the house. Scarily, being paired with young Carly, she had never heard of Ash, and only recognised a couple of the old favourites Shining Light and Goldfinger I think being the relevant two. However, they've also got some new-er songs around, like Twighlight of the Innocents, bringing a wide selection of songs. Which to an extent was actually unnecessary - the classic songs from the band's hey-day were sounding just as fresh as they did about 15 years ago. Good at getting the crowd going, really enjoyable.

Elsewhere, 3/4 of Mumford & Sons were late starting, so I wasn't able to hang around for more than the first part of the song which took a while to get going; Birds vs Planes Carly and myself were in mutual agreement that the music was fine and what we'd both like, but lead singer Jenny's voice was clearly on its way out; and somewhat disappointingly the Whisky Cats didn't really get going as I hoped, but that was possibly because of what was coming from the Keylied tent just round the corner.

Craig Charles on the decks playing the best of funk & soul got the crowd going incredibly as Sunday turned into Monday. Disco, funk, Motown, and best of all some Northern Soul (inevitably). When Frank Wilson started, I almost had to be physically restrained from joining in with the crowd - although I've got so say wearing boots in a muddy field isn't the greatest for the dancing...

Final thoughts then - Kendal Calling is still quite a small festival, but better for it. More intimate. From my own perspective, the music got better as the weekend went on, but to an extent that was the shifts I was working. It's been going from strength to strength since it's conception, and if the line-ups stay of a similar standard I'm very likely to be back next year. V2009 in just a few weeks will end up being a shock.

No comments: