The first ever
LED Festival got off to a bad start. Pitted against SW4 in Clapham (which sold out), not to mention Carnival the same weekend, poor ticket sales caused the organisers to cancel the Cream tent on the Friday, which was supposed to host the
Swedish House Mafia dons. One stage closed in a festival with only two stages? Ouch.
You could tell LED was struggling. In the week leading up to the event, in what seemed like an act of sheer panic, they started dishing out free tickets in papers and promotions. £50 was too much to ask anyway. And to add insult to injury, a rainy week in London had left Victoria Park mudmatronic.
So not the most auspicious of starts, but by the time I rocked up on Saturday the sun had come out, the mud had dried up and the good times were rolling.
A rather bizarre door policy which allowed you to take in water bottles (but not the lid) proved to be my downfall, for I'd soon polished off half a litre of cunningly disguised vodka. So I'd love to give you a run-through of all the sets, telling you how
Annie Mac smashed it,
Boy Better Know rinsed out, and everyone threw their hands in the air for a mighty finale with the legendary
Leftfield, but frankly I was totally sozzled by the end and not taking anything very seriously.
(In fact at one point my best mate and I ended up in the VIP bar with her breakdancing and me doing a bizarre Bez-style maraca dance around her. Damn you, vodka.)
What I can confirm is that
Shy FX played a blinder, dropping some truly classic jungle circa 1995. And since the crowd were generally an older bunch, we all thought this was totally rad.
Anyway, to make up for the fact that my reporting skills went to pot on this occasion, I've compiled a gallery of the event for your amusement. See my next post.
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