Last night I went to my first big gig of 2010, one that I’d been particularly excited about due to it featuring three of my favourite artists – Calvin Harris, Dizzee Rascal and Lily Allen. I have been a fan of both Calvin and Lily since their first single’s came out and have seen each of them once before. With Dizzee I admit I kind of jumped on the bandwagon when “Dance Wit Me” came out, but as someone who is actually very much into rap and not just a fancy-pants who likes whatever is popular right now, I don’t feel too bad about it.
Last night’s gig was a mixture of good and bad. Oh the music and artists were great, but there was a lot of shit stuff going on that nearly ruined my evening. First of all it was at the Riverstage which is an excellent venue but as it’s all-ages and has 10pm noise restrictions, gigs there often start quite early which sucks if you work til 5pm which is when the gates typically open. My friend Sarah, my sister Erin and I planned to lave mine at 6pm to get there around 6:30pm thinking that’s about when Miami Horror (who?) would be done. But oh no, turns out Calvin Harris started at 6:15 and so we only made it for his last two songs (“The Girls” and “I’m Not Alone”) which PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH! Not only did he have a shit start time, his set was only 30 minutes long. God I was angry. I am seriously considering writing a strongly-worded email to someone about this. Or bust some heads together, whichever ends up being easier. I managed to dance and cheer and swoon for these two songs at least, so I guess it could have been worse (ie. missing him entirely). My sister and I both got his t-shirt as a tribute to him and our poor timing. Also because he is so very handsome and ought to be painted in gold across my boobs ;)
Dizzee Rascal was next and that’s about when all the teenyboppers came along. A number of which stood right by us and tried to push through. We wouldn’t let them so they decided it’s be clever to push and crash into us violently. We told them to stop, yelled at them and then started pushing back. But they kept doing it and being little smart-arses about it, just to add icing to the cake. So Sarah pushed them as hard as she could so they almost toppled over and told them to “put some clothes on you sluts” (I’m sorry but girls who are clearly 15 years old should NOT be out wearing tiny denim shorts and little velveteen bra-tops, nor should they wear that much trashy blue eyeshadow and red lipstick). One in particular, I shall call her Velveteen (for her poor choice in top-material) was yelly and getting all up in our faces. I got very black all of a sudden and did the crazy-black-lady hand-thing and yelled “Do you wanna do this?” very loudly in her face a bunch of times. This kept on even as Dizzee got on stage, Sarah pushed them again and a couple of them came back swinging so we grabbed them, roughed them, mostly Miss Velveteen, up ever so slightly (just a few choke-holds, face-smooshings, slappings etc) and a final shove and they finally decided to back off. We shook with rage for a while but we soon transformed that into energy to DANCE.
Dizzee Rascal was excellent, I really loved his show. I saw him once at Parklife a couple of years ago but was too far back and too smashed to enjoy it properly so this was a much better experience. He started off with a bit of his back catalog and a few of the non-singles from his latest album which were all excellent. He worked the crowd a lot, getting us all to cheer and chant things and generally being very cute yet a lil bit gangsta (his face is so cute I could pinch his cheeks forever, which is probably not the look he’s going for really). I flipped my lid when he and his rather handsome backup singer (backup rapper?) started doing the Funky Charlston before “Old School” because it’s my favourite dance of all times ever! Then at the end he played all the big, new hits, starting with “Dance Wit Me”, followed by “Holiday” (probably my favorite) and ending with “Bonkers”. I never jumped/danced so much in my life, my legs and butt are still sore actually, and I very nearly peed myself from all the jumping/needing to go to the bathroom.
Lily Allen was on next, but we were exhausted and so stood a bit further back where the slope starts in order to see her properly. God is she short! And her legs are amazing! I don’t know if it’s weight-loss or just those fantastic high heels she wore but damn I couldn’t stop staring at those pins! She opened with Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” which I thought was hilarious because that song is so bad it’s good. She played a lot from her new album which I admit I only got a month or so ago, so I didn’t know a couple of the songs. I loved how she dropped some drum n bass and dubstep into her songs, such as “Smile” because I was feeling as though her songs were just a teeny bit slow going at first. She did an AMAZING cover of Brittney’s “Womanizer” which I know all the words too apparently (as if anyone’s actually shocked by this fact!) and ended the gig with a very extended version of “Not Fair” which had some (decent) electro as the last chorus. I personally loved her rants the most – she told us she’d watched BBC news the other day and was angry at the Americans criticizing Obama for not making the changes he promised since becoming President last year. I laughed, imagining her shouting at the TV, shaking her fist and thinking “right, I’m going to have to rant about this tonight to get it off my chest”. Hilarious. I also loved hearing everyone yelling the lyrics to “Fuck You” whilst giving the finger. Very classy!
Overall it was a lot of fun and I guess I can’t complain too much. I just wish we’d seen all of Calvin and that those slutty little girls had OD’d before they got to the gig (they were definitely on something), though admittedly I did get a lovely rush of adrenaline after our biff-up so maybe it was a good thing!
