Splendour, Wollaton Park

My other half and I arrive around 4pm and start with the tweeness of the failed Eurovision project that is Remember Monday. I am told they do a bad cover of a Sabrina Carpenter song but I wouldn’t be able to recognise a bad version of a Sabrina Carpenter song. We depart before they finish with their big Eurovision song ‘What the Hell Just Happened? 

Then we head to see Fratellis on the Main stage. This is less to my partner’s liking and she heads to a quiet corner with her book although I suspect she will still be able to hear them from there. A very secret fan perhaps? They open with a lively Henrietta and a huge many personned presence on the stage including saxophone and trumpet players. 

 

Amongst all their usual stuff they cover Baccara’s ‘Yes sir I can boogie’. Yes sir, really. It’s actually very good but they don’t attempt any Sabrina Carpenter. At least I'm pretty sure they don't.  

 

A problem with Splendour is that the beer usually runs out, yet this time the wine runs out first much to my partner’s chagrin. We have some noodles while watching Kate Nash from a distance. She seems to have an awful lot written across her dress but I can’t read any of it from this distance. 

Then we catch a bit of a very green looking (as in a very sparkly dress) Sophie Ellis-Bextor on the Main Stage as the rain starts to fall before we move across, at my insistence, to see the Levellers on the Confetti stage.  

 

This is the eight time of seen them as one of my friends used to be heavily into them. This includes my one and only foreign gig when I chanced upon them in California. However, all of this was a very long time ago and I haven’t seen them in 29 years. They haven’t changed any, to be honest. I think they are very entertaining but the person next to me is by now looking very bored. 

 

As we wait for Echo & The Bunnymen to appear on Confetti, the sky starts grumbling and the threat of lightning curtails Travis on the Main Stage. We are asked to retreat three meters from the metal barrier. Note to organisers - go plastic. Although these look like the actual ones from Rock City. When a delay in proceedings is announced my partner bails and heads home.

The Bunnymen come on an hour late and despite being outdoors still manage to disappear behind a cloud of dry ice. They play a shorter set of just under an hour including a one song encore of ‘The Cutter’ for which they bring out a chair for singer Ian McCulloch. As there’s no one due on after them, I’m not sure why they don’t play a full set as the site curfew is 10:30 and that’s still half an hour away. Perhaps they hadn't got enough chairs for the rest of the band 

As I head over to the Main Stage the Kaiser Chiefs appear to be playing Travis’ ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me?’ 

 

When I get there, I realise they have Travis with them, who didn’t get to play their big song. Then we’re back on track with ‘Ruby’ while they also play a great cover of the Ramones’ ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ and they go way beyond the 10:30 curfew and without chairs.